Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Role Of Federal Taxation In The Supply Of Municipal Bonds: Evidence From Municipal Governments, Gilbert E. Metcalf

Gilbert E. Metcalf

This paper considers ways in which federal tax policy affects municipal asset and debt holdings. The tax treatment of municipal bonds and income creates an arbitrage opportunity for communities to issue tax-exempt debt and invest in financial assets. The author presents evidence that suggests the rules in effect prior to 1986 to prevent this activity were not effective. He then develops and estimates a model of municipal bond supply. The author finds a semielasticity of 1.23 of long-term debt with respect to the spread between the after-tax rate of return and the municipal borrowing rate.

Naked Exclusion, Eric Bennett Rasmusen, J. Mark Ramseyer, John Wiley

Eric Bennett Rasmusen

Ordinarily, a monopoly cannot increase its profits by asking customers to sign agreements not to deal with potential competitors. If, however, there are 100 customers and the minimum efficient scale requires serving 15, the monopoly need only lock up 86 customers to forestall entry. If each customer believes that the others will sign, each also believes that no rival seller will enter. Hence, an individual customer loses nothing by signing the exclusionary agreement and will indeed sign. Thus, naked exclusion can be profitable.

Economic Theories Of Legal Liability, Robert D. Cooter

Robert Cooter

No abstract provided.

The Irrelevance Of Detail In A Computable General Equilibrium Model, Tyler Fox, Don Fullerton

Don Fullerton

No abstract provided.

Reconciling Recent Estimates Of The Marginal Welfare Cost Of Taxation, Don Fullerton

Don Fullerton

No abstract provided.

The Business Cycle: Growth And Crisis In Capitalism, Howard Sherman

HOWARD J SHERMAN

Are the recurring recessions of the capitalist world merely short-term adjustments to changing economic circumstances in a system that tends, in general, toward equilibrium? In this accessible study of the business cycle, Howard Sherman makes a powerful case that recessions and painful involuntary unemployment are endogenous to capitalism. Drawing especially on the work of Wesley Clair Mitchell, Karl Marx, and John M. Keynes, Sherman explains why the nature of the business cycle produces serious economic loss and misery during its contraction phase, just as it produces growth in its expansion phase.

Who Benefits From State And Local Economic Development Policies?, Timothy Bartik

Timothy J. Bartik

Bartik reviews evidence on whether state and local policies affect job growth. He then presents empirical data supporting the intentions of such programs, showing that job growth may lead to a number of positive long-term effects including: lower unemployment, higher labor force participation, higher real estate values, and better occupational opportunities. He also shows that the earnings gains to disadvantaged groups outweigh the resulting increased real estate values for property owners, and concludes by saying that regional competition for jobs may actually be a benefit for the nation as a whole.

Indirect Taxation And Trade Liberalization: An Application To India, William Rieber

William Rieber

Note: full-text not available due to publisher restrictions. Link takes you to an external site where you can acquire this article from a local library.

The Effect Of The Financial Aid Package On The Choice Of A Selective College, A. Studenmund, Thomas Slobko, Robert Moore

A. H. Studenmund

This paper examines the effects of financial aid on the decision to attend a selective liberal arts college using data obtained from applicants accepted to Occidental College in 1989. Patterned after a similar empirical investigation by Ehrenberg and Sherman for accepted freshmen at Cornell in 1981, logit probabilities of enrollment equations are estimated based on (1) observable characteristics of the individual students, (2) the net costs of attending Occidental and the various alternative colleges under consideration (including the financial aid packages offered) and (3) other characteristics of these alternative colleges. The results, like Ehrenberg and Sherman's, indicate that relative tuition …

Marketing Margins, Market Power, And Price Uncertainty, John Schroeter, Azzeddine Azzam

Azzeddine Azzam

This paper provides a conceptual and empirical framework for analyzing marketing margins in a noncompetitive food-processing industry facing output price uncertainty. The framework allows for the decomposition of observed margins into components reflecting the marginal cost of the processing industry, oligopoly/oligopsony price distortions, and an output price risk component. The empirical procedure is applied to a time series of spreads between wholesale pork prices and farm prices of market hogs. The principal finding is that, while farm/wholesale margins are more consistent with competitive performance now than they were fifteen years ago, the output price risk component persisted throughout the sample …

Trade Liberalization In Asian Newly Industrialized Countries, William Rieber, Iyanatual Islam

William Rieber

"The Nation As An Economic Unit:" Keynes, Roosevelt, And The Managerial Ideal, Richard Adelstein

Richard Adelstein

The First New Deal as central economic planning, and the lost opportunity to reconstruct the federal government toward peaceful Keynesianism.

Racial Differences In Adult Labor Force Transition Trends, Michael C. Seeborg, Mark Israel

Michael Seeborg

No abstract provided.

Deciding For Bigness, Richard Adelstein

Richard Adelstein

Antitrust as a constitutional constraint on the growth of firms.

Using Auction Theory To Inform Takeover Regulation, Peter Cramton, Alan Schwartz

Peter Cramton

This paper focuses on certain mechanisms that govern the sale of corporate assets. Under Delaware law, when a potential acquirer makes a serious bid for a target, the target’s Board of Directors is required to act as would "auctioneers charged with getting the best price for the stock-holders at a sale of the company.’’ The Delaware courts’ preference for auctions follows from two premises. First, a firm’s managers should maximize the value of their shareholders’ investment in the company. Second, auctions maximize shareholder returns. The two premises together imply that a target’s board should conduct an auction when at least …

Efficient Spatial Allocation Of Irrigation Water, Ujjayant N. Chakravorty, James Roumasset

Ujjayant Chakravorty

In the presence of conveyance losses, the efficient quantity of water applied falls with distance from the water source, but the amount of water "sent" (including conveyance losses) actually increases with distance from the source, except toward the tail end of the irrigation system. This implies that if marginal cost pricing were implemented, farmers at the middle and lower reaches of the system would have to pay more money for less water received. The model is illustrated and alternative financing schemes compared for an empirically derived demand function for irrigation water.