Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Welfare Reform A Success?, Laura Stivers

Laura Stivers

Household Saving In The '90s: Evidence From Cross-Section Wealth Surveys, John Sabelhaus, Karen M. Pence

Karen M. Pence

This paper uses a series of cross-section surveys to measure how wealth accumulation and active saving rates varied across cohort-groups during the early and mid 1990s. Our estimated rates of saving and wealth change across cohorts show a somewhat more dramatic life-cycle pattern than found in previous studies, in part because we use a new technique, and in part because the cross-section wealth surveys we use oversample the wealthiest families whose behavior dominates aggregate changes. Adjusting the wealth-change rates for bequests and subtracting out the capital gains component of wealth change move the estimates in the direction of results from …

Selección Empírica Para El Desarrollo Económico Regional, Vicente German-Soto

Vicente German-Soto

The Power Of Cyberlearning: An Empirical Test, Peter Navarro

PETER NAVARRO

No abstract provided.

Affidavit Of Peter Cramton, Peter Cramton

Peter Cramton

Summary of review of reserves and operable capability markets. For ISO New England.

Timing Of Seasonal Sales, Pascal Courty, Hao Li

hao li

We present a model of timing of seasonal sales where stores choose several designs at the beginning of the season without knowing which one, if any, will be fashionable. Fashionable designs have a chance to fetch high prices in fashion markets while non-fashionable ones must be sold in a discount market. In the beginning of the season, stores charge high prices in the hope of capturing their fashion market. As the end of the season approaches with goods still on the shelves, stores adjust downward their expectations that they are carrying a fashionable design, and may have sales to capture …

Dynamic Scale Economies, Specialization, And The Cost Of The Single Currency, Luca De Benedictis, Piercarlo Padoan

Luca De Benedictis

The paper explores the effect of exchange rate policy, labour market intervention and technological change on the structure of the Ricardian specialization of countries in presence of Economies of scale and learning-by-doing. The model is developed with the EU in mind.

Environmentally Sustainable Economic Development, Asayehgn Desta

Asayehgn Desta

Creating And Enforcing Norms, With Special Reference To Sanctions, Eric Bennett Rasmusen, Richard A. Posner

Eric Bennett Rasmusen

Two central puzzles about social norms are how they are enforced and how they are created or modified. The sanctions for violation of a norm can be categorized as automatic, guilt, shame, informational, bilateral- costly, and multilateral-costly. Problems in creating and enforcing norms are related to which sanctions are employed. We use our analysis of enforcement and creation of norms to analyze the scope of feasible government action either to promote desirable norms or to repress undesirable ones.

A Case Study Of The Enterprise Zone Program: “Ez” Avenue To Minority Economic Development?, Sherri Wallace

Sherri L. Wallace

Measuring The Energy Savings From Home Improvement Investments: Evidence From Monthly Billing Data, Gilbert E. Metcalf, Kevin A. Hassett

Gilbert E. Metcalf

An important factor driving energy policy over the past two decades has been the "energy paradox," the perception that consumers apply unreasonably high hurdle rates to energy-saving investments. We explore one possible explanation for this apparent puzzle: that realized returns fall short of the returns promised by engineers and product manufacturers. Using a unique data set, we find that the realized return to attic insulation is statistically significant, but the median estimate (9.7%) is almost identical to a discount rate for this investment implied by a CAPM analysis. We conclude that the case for the energy paradox is weaker than …

An Alternative Tale Of Two Tax Jurisdictions: A Reply, Robert L. Sexton, Gary Galles

Robert L Sexton

ABSTRACT. Cebula (1999) suggests that the success of California's Proposition 13 and Massachusetts' Proposition 2-1/2 is better judged by their effects on the growth rates of real per capita revenues and expenditures rather than on the te^ek of those variables, which Galles and Sexton (1998) used to evaluate those measures. However, the data shows that virtually all of their effects, relative to the United States as a whole, arose during their implementation periods, and that there is no clear evidence of the "longer term success in terms of reducing the growth rate of real per capita revenues and expenditures" that …

Hierarchies And Information-Processing Organizations, Hao Li

hao li

This paper analyzes organizational structures that minimize information processing costs for a specific organizational task. Organizations consist of agents of limited ability connected in a network. These agents collect and process information, and make decisions. Organizations implement strategies---mappings from environmental circumstances to decisions. The strategies are exogenously given from a class of "pie"' problems to be defined in this paper. The notion of efficiency is lexicographic: the primary criterion is minimizing the number of agents, and the secondary criterion is minimizing the number of connections between the agents. In this modeling framework, efficient organizations are not hierarchical for a large …

Investment With Uncertain Tax Policy: Does Random Tax Policy Discourage Investment?, Gilbert E. Metcalf, Kevin A. Hassett

Gilbert E. Metcalf

The authors consider the impact of tax policy uncertainty on firm level and aggregate investment, comparing investment behavior when uncertainty is due to a shock following geometric Brownian motion (GBM) versus when random discrete jumps in tax policy occur. Expectations of the likelihood of a tax policy switch have an important negative impact on the gain to delaying investment in the latter model and time to investment can fall with increasing tax policy uncertainty. Aggregate investment simulations indicate that capital formation is adversely affected by increases in uncertainty in the traditional GBM model but can be enhanced in the jump …

Women, Work, And Wages, Laura Stivers

Laura Stivers

A Coalfield Tapestry: Weaving The Socioeconomic Fabric Of Women's Lives, Ann M. Oberhauser, Anne-Marie Turnage

Ann Oberhauser

The Economics Of Land Degradation And Rural Poverty Linkages In Africa. Unu/Inra Annual Lectures On Natural Resource Conservation And Management In Africa, Edward Barbier

Edward B Barbier

No abstract provided.

Information Sharing And Tacit Collusion In Laboratory Duopoly Markets, Timothy N. Cason, Charles F. Mason

Charles F Mason

No abstract provided.

Market-Based Transfer Prices And Intracompany Discounts, Aaron S. Edlin, Tim Baldenius, Stefan Reichelstein

Aaron Edlin

No abstract provided.

Examining The Effect Of Industry Trends And Structure On Welfare Caseloads, Timothy Bartik, Randall Eberts

Timothy J. Bartik

No abstract provided.

Victims As Cost Bearers, Richard Adelstein

Richard Adelstein

A brief recasting of the price exaction model.

Comercio Intraindustrial En Europa: Determinantes Nacionales, Miguel Carrera Troyano

Miguel Carrera Troyano

En este trabajo se contrasta empíricamente la capacidad de los determinantes propuestos por la teoría para explicar la variación por países de los índices bilaterales de comercio intraindustrial (total, horizontal y vertical) de cinco países europeos (España, Francia, Alemania, Italia y Reino Unido). Tras presentar la metodología empleada para distinguir el comercio intraindustrial vertical y horizontal se presentan los resultados de la aplicación a los cinco países. Asimismo, se proponen y contrastan diferentes hipótesis explicativas, sin seguir un único modelo teórico, de la variabilidad entre países de los índices de comercio intraindustrial. Se concluye, entre otras cosas, que una parte …

Jobs, Productivity, And Local Economic Development: What Implications Does Economic Research Have For The Role Of Government?, Timothy Bartik

Timothy J. Bartik

No abstract provided.

Eliciting Compliance From Warlords: The Ecowas Experience In Liberia, 1990–1997, Emmanuel Aning

Emmanuel Kwesi Aning

This article examines the strategies initiated by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to elicit compliance with its disarmament policies from belligerents in Liberia's 1989–96 civil conflict. I propose to tackle the task within a linked and holistic four‐fold approach. First, I situate ECOWAS's intervention in Liberia from 1990 to 1997 within the changing context of international perceptions of multilateral organisation involvement in civil wars. ECOWAS's intervention had different diplomatic phases. The first phase under the Standing Mediation Committee lasted from May 1990‐June 1991, The Committee of Five Process from June 1991‐August 1992, and the Committee of Nine …

The Market Failure Approach To Regional Economic Development Policy, Timothy Bartik

Timothy J. Bartik

No abstract provided.

Accounting Obligations, Constraints And Rules (In Italian), Paola Saracino

Paola Saracino

No abstract provided.

Workplace Organization And Human Resource Practices: The Retail Food Industry, Avner Ben-Ner, Fanmin Kong, Stacie Bosley

Stacie Bosley

Life On "Ez" Street: Linking Community Economic Development To The Empowerment Zones And Enterprise Community Policy Goals, Sherri Wallace

Sherri L. Wallace

Does Mother Nature Punish Rotten Kids?, Ted Bergstrom, Carl Bergstrom

Ted C Bergstrom

The theory of parent-offspring conflict predicts that mothers and their offspring may not agree about how resources should be allocated among family members. A kid, for example, may favor a later weaning date than does its mother. Despite the mother's physical superiority, it may be that the kid is able to manipulate her behavior. In this paper, we investigate a two-locus population genetic model of weaning conflict in which offspring can attempt to extort resources from their parents by reducing their own chances of survival if their demands are not met. We find that the frequency of recombination between the …

Consumption Adjustment Under Time-Varying Income Uncertainty, Douglas Steigerwald, Joon-Ho Hahm

Douglas G. Steigerwald

We study the effect of income uncertainty on consumption in a model that includes precautionary saving. In contrast to previous studies, we focus on time-series variation in income uncertainty. Our time-series measure of income uncertainty is constructed from a panel of forecasts. We find evidence of precautionary saving in that increases in income uncertainty are related to increases in aggregate rates of saving. We also find evidence that anticipated income growth rates have less explanatory power for consumption growth rates after conditioning on income uncertainty. The evidence indicates the presence of forward-looking consumers who gradually adjust precautionary savings in response …