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Articles 1 - 30 of 64
Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network
Global Climate Policy Will Have Net Benefits Larger Than Anyone Thinks (And Welfare Gains, Strangely, Are Likely To Be Much Larger Yet), Philip E. Graves
Global Climate Policy Will Have Net Benefits Larger Than Anyone Thinks (And Welfare Gains, Strangely, Are Likely To Be Much Larger Yet), Philip E. Graves
PHILIP E GRAVES
As with other public goods lacking strong special interest support, global climate policy suffers from two serious theoretical flaws. The first is failure to endogenize the labor-leisure decision when conducting benefit-cost analysis. Recognition that income generated will not remain the same pre-and-post policy results in downward bias in benefit estimation. Much more importantly, there will generally be free riding in input markets in addition to the well-known output demand revelation problem. Since even households with very high marginal values cannot individually increment public goods, too little income will be generated and too much of the income that is generated will …
A Note On Monitoring Costs And Voter Fraud, Philip E. Graves, Robert L. Sexton, Gary Galles
A Note On Monitoring Costs And Voter Fraud, Philip E. Graves, Robert L. Sexton, Gary Galles
PHILIP E GRAVES
Election fraud can threaten democracy if many ineligible people are allowed to vote. The usual policy prescription is to increase monitoring cost. However, this is very costly. This paper proposes a more cost effective strategy: substitute tougher and consistent statutes across states against voter fraud.
The Critical Difference Between Republicans/Conservatives And Democrats/Liberals, Philip E. Graves
The Critical Difference Between Republicans/Conservatives And Democrats/Liberals, Philip E. Graves
PHILIP E GRAVES
There are, of course, a great many specific differences between the political positions of the two dominant political parties in America. After an introductory section characterizing those, section two suggests that the demarcation of critical importance between the parties relates to how they view the income distribution. Those self-identifying as Republican/Conservative tend to view the income distribution as an artifact of a host of individual work/leisure decisions with little policy relevance; those characterizing themselves as Democrat/Liberal tend to view the income distribution as a pure public good—in this view, private sector outcomes are expected to provide a non-optimally small amount …
Productive Complements: Too Often Neglected In The Principles Course?, Gary Galles, Philip E. Graves, Robert L. Sexton
Productive Complements: Too Often Neglected In The Principles Course?, Gary Galles, Philip E. Graves, Robert L. Sexton
PHILIP E GRAVES
Many great economic thinkers, including Alfred Marshall and William Stanley Jevons discussed the importance of joint production, or productive complements, and there are important applications. Yet many students today could complete an economics major and never be introduced to this important concept.
Coase Minus The Coase Theorem--Some Problems With Chicago Transaction Cost Analysis, Pierre Schlag
Coase Minus The Coase Theorem--Some Problems With Chicago Transaction Cost Analysis, Pierre Schlag
Pierre Schlag
In law as well as economics, the most well-known aspect of Coase’s “The Problem of Social Cost,” is the Coase Theorem. Over the decades, that particular notion has morphed into a crucial component of Chicago law and economics—namely, transaction cost analysis. In this Article, I deliberately bracket the Coase Theorem to show that “The Problem of Social Cost” contains far more interesting and unsettling lessons—both for law as well as for economics. Indeed, while Coase’s arguments clearly target the Pigouvian attempts to “improve on the market” through government correctives, there is, lurking in those arguments, a much more profound critique …
Spatial Equilibrium In The Labor Market, Philip E. Graves
Spatial Equilibrium In The Labor Market, Philip E. Graves
PHILIP E GRAVES
The paper discusses two approaches to spatial equilibrium in the labor market. The more traditional approach of labor economics assumes wage differentials represent arbitrageable differences in utility, with implications 1) that migration should be toward higher wage areas and 2) that migration flows will lead to convergence in wages over space. The more recent approach of urban/regional economics follows Roback in examining the implications of assumed equilibrium in utility over space. In this view wage differentials are compensatory (along with rent differentials) for amenity variation over space. The implications for wage convergence over space are complicated, but in general there …
The Hedonic Method Of Valuing Environmental Policies And Quality, Philip E. Graves
The Hedonic Method Of Valuing Environmental Policies And Quality, Philip E. Graves
PHILIP E GRAVES
Benefit-cost analysts attempt to compare two states of the world, the status quo and a state in which a policy having benefits and costs is being contemplated. For environmental policies, this comparison is greatly complicated by the difficulty in inferring the values that individuals place on an increment to environmental quality. Unlike ordinary private goods, environmental goods are not directly exchanged in markets with observable prices. In this chapter, the hedonic approach to inferring the benefits of an environmental policy is examined.
Spatial Equilibrium In Labor Markets, Philip E. Graves
Spatial Equilibrium In Labor Markets, Philip E. Graves
PHILIP E GRAVES
Over long periods of human history, labor market equilibrium involved movements from low-wage areas to high-wage areas, a form of arbitrage under the implicit view that wage differentials corresponded to utility differentials. This “labor economics” view is likely to be viable as long as movement and information costs are high, and under this view the movements would be expected to cause wage convergence over space. In recent decades, perhaps beginning as early as the 1960’s, both the out of pocket and psychological costs of movement have plummeted with advances in transportation and communication technology and innovation. In addition, these same …
The Peculiar Immobility: Regional Affinity And The Postbellum Black Migrant, Philip E. Graves, Robert L. Sexton, Richard Vedder
The Peculiar Immobility: Regional Affinity And The Postbellum Black Migrant, Philip E. Graves, Robert L. Sexton, Richard Vedder
PHILIP E GRAVES
Why did newly freed slaves and their descendants wait a half a century before migrating in large numbers to the superior economic opportunities in the North? Census lifetime migration data on both movers and stayers are examined intertemporally for both whites and blacks. Regression analysis reveals that before 1920 Southern blacks had a very strong affinity for the "Southern way of life."
Benefit-Cost Analysis Of Enviromental Projects: A Plethora Of Biases Understating Net Benefits, Philip E. Graves
Benefit-Cost Analysis Of Enviromental Projects: A Plethora Of Biases Understating Net Benefits, Philip E. Graves
PHILIP E GRAVES
There are many reasons to suspect that benefit-cost analysis applied to environmental policies will result in policy decisions that will reject those environmental policies. The important question, of course, is whether those rejections are based on proper science. The present paper explores sources of bias in the methods used to evaluate environmental policy in the United States, although most of the arguments translate immediately to decision-making in other countries. There are some “big picture” considerations that have gone unrecognized, and there are numerous more minor, yet cumulatively important, technical details that point to potentially large biases against acceptance on benefit-cost …
The Educational Choice Anomaly For Principles Students: Using Ordinary Supply And Demand Rather Than Indifference Curves, Philip E. Graves, Robert L. Sexton, Lauren Calimeris
The Educational Choice Anomaly For Principles Students: Using Ordinary Supply And Demand Rather Than Indifference Curves, Philip E. Graves, Robert L. Sexton, Lauren Calimeris
PHILIP E GRAVES
The “surprise value” of many economic observations makes our discipline quite interesting for many students. One such anomaly is that providing “free” education in an effort to reduce the number of dropouts can often result in a lower level of educational quality purchased. This result is easy to show with indifference curves, but many instructors of introductory courses do not introduce this analytical technique. As a consequence, a result that many students find quite interesting is seldom presented. We show here that it is easy to clarify the educational choice anomaly with ordinary supply and demand curves. Moreover, the exercise …
Appropriate Fiscal Policy Over The Business Cycle: Proper Stimulus Policies Can Work, Philip E. Graves
Appropriate Fiscal Policy Over The Business Cycle: Proper Stimulus Policies Can Work, Philip E. Graves
PHILIP E GRAVES
Fiscal policy has become quite controversial in the post-Keynesian era, the debate over the Obama stimulus package being a contentious recent example. Some pundits go so far as to take the position that macroeconomic theory has failed to meaningfully progress in terms of providing useful recommendations for policy-makers, particularly in times of recession. Others take the laissez-faire view that policy reactions to the business cycle do not help in a rational expectations world and indeed do harm by increasing uncertainty. Still others, while not necessarily viewing themselves as in any sense ―Keynesian,‖ have a nagging feeling that sometimes doing nothing …
Environmental Valuation: The Sum Of Specific Damages Approach, Philip E. Graves
Environmental Valuation: The Sum Of Specific Damages Approach, Philip E. Graves
PHILIP E GRAVES
There is no abstract for this book chapter.
Benefit-Cost Analysis Of Environmental Projects: A Plethora Of Systematic Biases, Philip E. Graves
Benefit-Cost Analysis Of Environmental Projects: A Plethora Of Systematic Biases, Philip E. Graves
PHILIP E GRAVES
There are many reasons to suspect that benefit-cost analysis applied to environmental policies will result in policy decisions that will reject those environmental policies. The important question, of course, is whether those rejections are based on proper science. The present paper explores sources of bias in the methods used to evaluate environmental policy in the United States, although most of the arguments translate immediately to decision-making in other countries. There are some “big picture” considerations that have gone unrecognized, and there are numerous more minor, yet cumulatively important, technical details that point to potentially large biases against acceptance on benefit-cost …
The Hedonic Method: Value Of Statistical Life, Wage Compensation Property Value Compensation, Philip E. Graves
The Hedonic Method: Value Of Statistical Life, Wage Compensation Property Value Compensation, Philip E. Graves
PHILIP E GRAVES
There is no abstract for this book chapter.
A Note On The Valuation Of Collective Goods: Overlooked Input Market Free Riding For Non-Individually Incrementable Goods, Philip E. Graves
A Note On The Valuation Of Collective Goods: Overlooked Input Market Free Riding For Non-Individually Incrementable Goods, Philip E. Graves
PHILIP E GRAVES
For at least fifty years economists have argued that vertically-aggregated marginal willingness to pay, when set equal to marginal provision cost, will result in optimal public good provision levels. This methodological approach would be expected to yield an exact analog, in terms of optimal levels of public good provision, to efficient provision of private goods in a perfect market setting. There is, however, a potentially serious flaw in the approach as actually practiced, since initial incomes are implicitly–and wrongly–taken to be optimal. From a given income, the output demand revelation problem has long been recognized–that there will be difficulty inferring …
The Simple Analytics Of The Wta-Wtp Disparity For Public Goods, Philip E. Graves
The Simple Analytics Of The Wta-Wtp Disparity For Public Goods, Philip E. Graves
PHILIP E GRAVES
A robust finding in economics is that decision-makers often exhibit a much smaller dollar willingness to pay (WTP) for an item than the minimum amount that they claim to be willing to accept (WTA) to part with it. The spread between these two numbers is particularly large for public goods, raising serious public policy concerns regarding which number, if either, is appropriate for valuing such goods. A number of explanations for this phenomenon have been advanced, each perhaps of relevance in particular settings, with little consensus being achieved as to whether any explanation satisfactorily resolves the problem. A traditional utility …
A Note On The "Union Effect" In Vsl Studies, Philip E. Graves
A Note On The "Union Effect" In Vsl Studies, Philip E. Graves
PHILIP E GRAVES
Viscusi and Aldy (2003) observe that “most studies of the U.S. labor market find that union affiliation is positively correlated with a greater wage-risk tradeoff while international evidence is much more mixed.” They provide several arguments as to why the risk premium might be higher for union members (marginal versus average worker preference, the quasi-public good nature of workplace safety, and better safety information for the unionized). An alternative explanation–concentration of union membership in undesirable locations–can account for both the apparent higher risk premium in union jobs in the United States and the failure to find that gap in the …
Voodoo Multipliers Revisited: Public Policy For Recessions And Boomtimes, Philip E. Graves
Voodoo Multipliers Revisited: Public Policy For Recessions And Boomtimes, Philip E. Graves
PHILIP E GRAVES
There is no abstract for this brief column.
A Note On The Design Of Experiments Involving Public Goods, Philip E. Graves
A Note On The Design Of Experiments Involving Public Goods, Philip E. Graves
PHILIP E GRAVES
Concern about potential free riding in the provision of public goods has a long history. More recently, experimental economists have turned their attention to the conditions under which free riding would be expected to occur. A model of free riding is provided here which demonstrates that existing experimental approaches fail to explore a potentially important real-world dimension of free riding. In a cash-in-advance economy, free riding becomes a two-stage problem, while existing experiments only address the second stage. That is, one would expect households with high demands for public goods relative to private goods to generate less income than households …
If The Large Wta-Wtp Gap For Public Goods Is Real (And There Are Good Reasons To Think So) Conventional Welfare Measures Are Simply Incorrect, Philip E. Graves
If The Large Wta-Wtp Gap For Public Goods Is Real (And There Are Good Reasons To Think So) Conventional Welfare Measures Are Simply Incorrect, Philip E. Graves
PHILIP E GRAVES
A robust finding in economics is that decision-makers often exhibit a much smaller dollar willingness to pay (WTP) for an item than the minimum amount that they claim to be willing to accept (WTA) to part with it. The spread between these two numbers is particularly large for public goods, raising serious public policy concerns regarding which number, if either, is appropriate for valuing such goods. A traditional utility maximizing model is presented here that predicts–as both measures are currently calculated–that WTA will exceed WTP, quite plausibly by a substantial amount for public goods. Moreover, it is shown here that …
The Wta-Wtp Gap And Welfare Measures For Public Goods, Philip E. Graves
The Wta-Wtp Gap And Welfare Measures For Public Goods, Philip E. Graves
PHILIP E GRAVES
A robust finding in experimental economics is that decision-makers often exhibit a much smaller dollar willingness to pay (WTP) for an item than the minimum amount that they claim to be willing to accept (WTA) to part with it. The spread between these two numbers is particularly large for public goods, raising serious public policy concerns regarding which number, if either, is appropriate for valuing such goods. A number of explanations for this phenomenon have been advanced, each perhaps of relevance in particular settings, with little consensus being achieved as to whether any explanation satisfactorily resolves the problem. The traditional …
Economic Growth And Business Cycles: The Labor Supply Decision With Two Types Of Technological Progress, Philip E. Graves
Economic Growth And Business Cycles: The Labor Supply Decision With Two Types Of Technological Progress, Philip E. Graves
PHILIP E GRAVES
An informal model is described that leads to multiple macroeconomic equilibria as a consequence of random variation in the relative amounts of technological change for new and existing goods. The novel observation is that the rate of introduction and market penetration of new goods vis-a-vis technological advance for existing goods importantly affects the labor supply decision. A relatively rapid influx of new goods will generally increase labor supply, while relatively more technological advance for existing goods will reduce labor supply to the market. These impacts are seen to provide insights into Rostow's stages of growth. Short run variations in the …
Predicting Life Expectancy: A Cross-Country Empirical Analysis, Audrey B. Hendricks, Philip E. Graves
Predicting Life Expectancy: A Cross-Country Empirical Analysis, Audrey B. Hendricks, Philip E. Graves
PHILIP E GRAVES
Most economic research on life expectancy focuses on building forecasting models using mortality trends or constructing parameter life expectancy models with samples of individuals. We here provide a cross-sectional model of life expectancy, using a comprehensive worldwide sample, which analyses the impact of country level variables on average life expectancy. The model variants suggest robustly that proxies for technology, education, disposable income and healthcare all have a significant and positive effect on country variation in average life expectancy, at all income levels. A proxy for the health risks/epidemics factor is significantly negative. This analysis provides information of use to governments, …
An Implementable Institutional Reform That Transfers Control Of Government Spending Levels From Politicians To Voters, Philip E. Graves
An Implementable Institutional Reform That Transfers Control Of Government Spending Levels From Politicians To Voters, Philip E. Graves
PHILIP E GRAVES
Elected representatives have little incentive to pursue the interests of those electing them once they are elected. This well-known principle-agent problem leads, in a variety of theories of government, to non-optimally large levels of government expenditure. An implication is that budgetary rules are seen as necessary to constrain politicians' tax and spending behavior. Popular among such constraints are various Balanced Budget Amendment proposals. These approaches, however, are shown here to have serious limitations, including failure to address the central concern of spending level. An alternative approach is advanced here that relies on a Coase-like mechanism that transfers control of government …
Cross-Price Elasticity And Income Elasticity Of Demand: Are Your Students Confused?, Philip E. Graves, Robert L. Sexton
Cross-Price Elasticity And Income Elasticity Of Demand: Are Your Students Confused?, Philip E. Graves, Robert L. Sexton
PHILIP E GRAVES
The authors demonstrate that most textbooks are ambiguous at best in their treatment of cross-price elasticity and income elasticity of demand. There is also no discussion of what initiates a price increase in discussions of substitutes and complements in the textbooks examined. The authors offer a remedy for these deficiencies.
The Economics Of Ghost Towns, Philip E. Graves, Stephan Weiler, Emily E. Tynon
The Economics Of Ghost Towns, Philip E. Graves, Stephan Weiler, Emily E. Tynon
PHILIP E GRAVES
The ghost towns of the American West are both intriguing historical artifacts and reflections of unique economic forces at work. In this study we develop linked labor and housing market models balancing the wages, rents, and local amenities of isolated boomtown sites to better understand the sources of such communities’ dramatic cycles. High variance boom-towns provide a unique context for investment in housing and other foundational infrastructure, leading directly to the unusually transient local development patterns seen in ghost town settings. We use Colorado-based case studies to illustrate the relevance of the model. Comparisons with more modern rural settings in …
Environmental Perceptions And Environmental Reality: When More Is Less, Philip E. Graves
Environmental Perceptions And Environmental Reality: When More Is Less, Philip E. Graves
PHILIP E GRAVES
There is no abstract for this article.
Non-Optimal Levels Of Suburbanization, Philip E. Graves
Non-Optimal Levels Of Suburbanization, Philip E. Graves
PHILIP E GRAVES
Suburbanization has many causes, among which is the attempt to relocate to acquire a more desirable vector of local public goods. The traditional economists' procedure for valuing public goods involves vertical aggregation of marginal willingness to pay, at a given income level. This approach is flawed by failing to recognize that individuals will not work for goods that cannot be acquired individually with higher incomes. There will be a parallel input market failure any time there is a public good output market failure, thus the `given income' of the traditional valuation method is too low. Hence, traditional valuation methods result …
I Don't Know, Philip E. Graves
I Don't Know, Philip E. Graves
PHILIP E GRAVES
This is a non-fiction novel, titled I Don't Know. I is in three parts, the first economic (which will seem "liberal" to most), the second political (which will seem "conservative" to most), and the third theological (which will seem weird to most). I think you will find it a fun read, and feel free to distribute it at will.