Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Almost Everybody Disagrees Almost All The Time: The Genericity Of Weakly Merging Nowhere, Ronald I. Miller, Chris William Sanchirico

All Faculty Scholarship

Suppose we randomly pull two agents from a population and ask them to observe an unfolding, infinite sequence of zeros and ones. If each agent starts with a prior belief about the true sequence and updates this belief on revelation of successive observations, what is the chance that the two agents will come to agree on the likelihood that the next draw is a one? In this paper we show that there is no chance. More formally, we show that under a very unrestrictive definition of what it means to draw priors “randomly,” the probability that two priors have any …

(Reviews) Economic Thought Before Adam Smith And Classical Economics, Spencer J. Pack

Economics Faculty Publications

Economic Thought Before Adam Smith: An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume I. By Murray N. Rothbard. Brookfield. Vermont: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, 1995. Pp. 556. $99.95.

Classical Economics: An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume II. By Murray N. Rothbard. Brookfield. Vermont: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, 1995. Pp. 528. $99.95.

Introducing Students To The Competing Schools Of Thought In Intermediate Macroeconomics, Harlan M. Smith Ii

Economics Faculty Research

The article discusses how the intermediate macroeconomics instructor can introduce students to ways of old and new Keynesians and classical theorists addressed the question on why output and employment fluctuate. Keynesian macroeconomics characterizes a school of thought developed around two central prepositions. New Keynesians develop alternative ways of explaining short-run movements in output and employment in the early 1970's. All individuals maximize utility, firm maximizes profits. Recently, new classicals developed an alternative approach in explaining short-run fluctuation in employment and output by redefining the concept of the short run.

(Review) Ian Simpson Ross, The Life Of Adam Smith And Jerry Z. Muller, Adam Smith In His Time And Ours, Spencer J. Pack

Economics Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Adam Smith On The Virtues: A Partial Resolution Of The Adam Smith Problem, Spencer J. Pack

Economics Faculty Publications

Adam Smith's definition of justice as a moral virtue based on the "passion" of resentment in 'The Theory of Moral Sentiments' (1759), despite seeming contradictions, supports his analysis of an acquisitive, commercial society in 'The Wealth of Nations' (1774) partly by precluding the concept of a just price.

The Livingston Survey: Still Useful After All These Years, Dean D. Croushore

Economics Faculty Publications

The decisions of households, firms, and government agencies depend on forecasts of the overall economy. Large firms and the federal government often have the resources to hire their own economists to provide forecasts. But households, small firms, and local governments often depend on surveys of forecasters to get their information. In this article, Dean Croushore spotlights the Livingston Survey, which, even after 50 years, still provides useful forecasts of the economy.

Globalization And Local Economic Development: Intersections Between The Industrial Economy And Regional Industrial Planning, Center For Economic Development

Center for Economic Development Technical Reports

By now it is widely accepted that we live in a global economy. We are more likely to buy goods from Korea than Kansas, we may have pension funds invested in companies on the Tokyo stock market as well as New York's, and we may work for a corporation with headquarters in Brussels rather than Boston. But despite our sense of participating in a world economy, it is difficult to understand how that world's economy intersects with the national or local economies with which we are more familiar. This is particularly significant for the regional economic development planner. Despite the …

Industrial Clusters And Institutional Support: A Case Study The Plastics Cluster In The Montachusetts Region And It's Training Needs, Center For Economic Development

Center for Economic Development Technical Reports

The purpose of this research and the dual papers is to comprehensively explore industrial clusters by looking at a number of examples, and then examine in greater detail, the Montachusetts Region in north central Massachusetts where the plastics industry has a strong base. The current weakness of the plastics industry will be identified and tackled.

The shift in organizational structure from global mass producing giants to industrial clusters that focus on flexible specialization, influenced many studies throughout the 1980s and 1990s. This paper will feed from these studies and expand on the role of institutional support networks.

Accounting For The Change In Income Disparities Between Us Central Cities And Their Suburbs From 1980 To 1990, Edward W. Hill, Harold L. Wolman

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

Develops a method that uses cluster analysis to group central cities in the United States. Selection of the candidate cluster solutions; Median characteristics of the clusters; Stressed central cities; Healthy central cities.

Exercise The Power Of The Purse With Hussein, Porcher L. Taylor Iii

School of Professional and Continuing Studies Faculty Publications

In the same shrewd diplomatic spirit displayed by the Pentagon in its recent purchase of a squadron of MIG-29 fighter jets from Moldova in order to preempt the sale of the planes to Iran, the U.S. should offer to buy Iraq's entire biochemical weapons arsenal and then destroy it in place. Let's call this emerging instrument of U.S. foreign policy "preemptive economic diplomacy."

Tobin, James, Tony Caporale

Economics and Finance Faculty Publications

James Tobin was born in Champaign, Illinois, in 1918. He received his bachelor's degree in 1939 and his master's degree in 1940, both from Harvard. Following naval service during the years 1942-6, he returned to his graduate studies and received his PhD from Harvard in 1947. In 1950, he joined the economics department at Yale University, and he has largely remained at Yale and has been identified with this institution throughout his career. He twice directed the Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, first from 1955 to 1961, and then from 1964 to 1965. He also served for two years, …

On Game Theory And The Law, Kenneth G. Dau-Schmidt, Jeffrey E. Stake, Robert H. Heidt, Eric Rasmusen, Michael Alexeev

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Gatt, Dispute Settlement And Cooperation: A Reply, Dan Kovenock, Marie Thursby

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

In our 1992 paper, we analyzed GATT and its dispute settlement procedure (DSP) in the context of a supergame model of international trade featuring both explicit (GATT) and implicit (non-GATT) agreements. Our paper departed from the previous economics literature on GATT enforcement (see, for instance Hungerford (1991) and Ludema (1990)) by incorporating the ``twin engines of international obligation and retaliation'' (Hudec, 1990). International obligation imposed a cost of violating an explicit international agreement, such as GATT, while retaliation could take place either within the rules stipulated by the international agreement or by punishment outside of the agreement. In Section 2 …

Class Action Reform: Lessons From Securities Litigation, Jill E. Fisch

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The New Economics Of Jurisdictional Competition: Devolutionary Federalism In A Second-Best World, William W. Bratton, Joseph A. Mccahery

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

An Inquiry Into The Efficiency Of The Limited Liability Company: Of Theory Of The Firm And Regulatory Competition, William W. Bratton, Joseph A. Mccahery

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Public Choice And The Future Of Public-Choice-Influenced Scholarship, David A. Skeel Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Demand Fluctuations And Capacity Utilization Under Duopoly, J. J. Gabszewicz, Sougata Poddar

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

This paper studies the impact of uncertain demand on firms' capacity decisions when they operate in an oligopolistic environment. We define a two-stage game where firms choose capacity in the first stage without knowing which state of nature is going to realize, and output levels in the second, knowing which state is realized. We prove the existence of a symmetric subgame perfect equilibrium at which firms are in excess capacity compared with the capacity they would choose in the Cournot certainty equivalent game.

Dividends, Noncontractibility, And Corporate Law, William W. Bratton

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.