Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Innovations, Instability And Institutions, Hyman P. Minsky Ph.D., Pietro Ferri Ph.D.

Hyman P. Minsky Archive

Papers presented at the seminar on “Innovations in Technology, Labor and Finance: An Integrated Approach to Instability,” Washington University, St. Louis, Mo., May 1985.

Turner’S Cbs Bid Typical Of Sickening Economic Inefficiency, Hyman P. Minsky Ph.D.

Hyman P. Minsky Archive

One of the ongoing column, “THE ECONOMY From The Not-So Ivory Tower."

The Numeraire, Money And The Missing Degree Of Freedom, Martin Shubik

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

The prime purpose of this article is to illustrate some basic problems in the modelling of strategic market games with a single means of exchange or with complete markets. A simple example involving three types of traders trading in three commodities serves to make the points clear.

A Model Of A Sudden-Death Field-Goal Football Game As A Sequential Duel, Siddhartha Sahi, Martin Shubik

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

This paper introduces a highly simplified version of ‘sudden-death’ scoring. The basic game is as follows. With equal probability the teams toss to see who gets the ball. The team with the ball can either run or try to kick a field goal. The first team to score wins the game.

Real Indeterminacy With Financial Assets, John Geanakoplos, Andreu Mas-Colell

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

The purpose of this paper, which takes up after D. Cass (1984a, 1984b) is to find the degree of real indeterminacy inherent in models with purely financial assets. We solve the problem for the case where there are enough traders (precisely, the number of traders is larger than the number of bonds) and the asset returns structure is in general position. We find that if the number of bonds is non-zero and fewer than the number of states then, generically, the number of dimensions of real indeterminacy is S-1, one less than the number of states. There is something of …

The Use Of Simple Games To Illustrate Concepts And To Provide Experimental Evidence, Martin Shubik

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

This paper is devoted to a discussion of several simple experimental games used in a series of lectures on game theory. The prime purpose of these games was to raise questions and illustrate problems in the construction of game theoretical models in the social sciences. The students were asked to make choices or to give opinions as to what imputation should be recommended as a solution in a cooperative game.

Some Three Person Games In Coalitional Form For Teaching And Experimentation, Martin Shubik

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Since 1973 I have used several three person games in coalitional form for both teaching and experimental purposes. They have been run in primarily a normative mode. The individuals have been asked to act as judges called upon to recommend a division of assets among three players. The basic use of these games has been to help to raise questions about context and solution concepts in cooperative game theory. Since 1980 the three basic games noted below have been used with five more or less similar groups of students at Yale. The games, their didactic purpose and the results from …

Relying On The Information Of Interested Parties, Paul R. Milgrom, John Roberts

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We investigate the conventional wisdom that competition among interested parties attempting to influence a decision maker by providing verifiable information brings out all the relevant information. We find that, if the decision maker is strategically sophisticated and well informed about the relevant variables and about the preferences of the interested party or parties, competition may be unnecessary; while if the decision maker is unsophisticated or not well informed, competition is not generally sufficient. However, if the interested parties’ interests are sufficiently opposed, or if the decision maker is seeking to advance the parties’ decision maker’s need for prior knowledge about …

Mass Economies With Vital Small Coalitions; The F-Core Approach, Peter J. Hammond, Mamoru Kaneko, Myrna Holtz Wooders

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

A mass-economy is one with many, many agents where each agent is negligible and each trading group is also negligible with respect to the mass-economy. Feasible allocations are those which are virtually attainable by trades only among members of coalitions contained in feasible (“measure-consistent”) partitions of the agent set. A feasible allocation is in the core, called the f -core, if it cannot be improved upon by any finite coalition. We show that in a private goods economy with indivisibilities and without externalities, the f -core, the A -core (Aumann’s core concept) and the Walrasian allocations coincide. In the presence …

International Lending And Borrowing In A Stochastic Sequence Equilibrium, Richard H. Clarida

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

The objective of this paper is to study international lending and borrowing in general equilibrium framework in which countries are subject to stochastic productivity fluctuations. The role of time preference, borrowing limits, and lump sum taxation are rigorously analyzed, yielding results which enrich those obtained in the existing literature.

An Economic Evaluation Of Manufacturing In The U. A. E. With Special Reference To The Cement Industry, Shaykhah Saif Al-Shamsi

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Public Personnel Administration In Cyprus: A Study Of Selected Aspects, Marina Micheal Alexandrou

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Immobility Of Low-Paid Workers, Marshall I. Pomer

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This paper extends the labor segmentation perspective on unequal job access. Analyzed here are Census data on the occupational mobility of low-paid workers during the period 1965 to 1970. Upward mobility, defined as movement from a low-paid to a mainstream stratum, is far more common for white men than for women and blacks-even after controlling for differences in age, education, and type of low-paid job. A worker's particular low-paid occupation also strongly affects chances of entering the mainstream stratum. The dominant paradigm for quantitative research on social stratification is questioned, and social policies are suggested.

Exchange Rate Stability And Its Implications For Economic Development Of The Less Developed Countries, Chileshe Hilda Wabo Gowon

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The question that Less Developed Countries have faced since the advent of floating exchange rates among the Industrial Countries is whether they should also adopt a floating exchange rate system. The Less Developed Countries have opted for a pegged exchange rate system, since their economic characteristics and institutional structure indicate that floating for the Less Developed Countries would result in volatile or unstable exchange rates. Since Less Developed Countries peg t heir exchange rates in the presence of flexible rates among industrial countries, the Less Developed Countries pegged exchange rates move in accordance to the exchange rates to which they …

Optimal Forest Rotation: Decisions Under Conditions Of Certainty And Uncertainty, Rabindra Nath Bhattacharyya

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The existing literature determining the optimal rotation period of a forest stand under conditions of certainty, as well as under uncertainty, lacks the genera 1 scope to be useful. A forest provides timber of commercial value, a flow of recreational services, and other valuable environmental services. Providing goods and services involves benefits as well as costs. Relevant management decisions depend on the net values that can be obtained. The present work developes a more general model for determining an optimal rotation period incorporating various fixed and variable costs associated with timber production and recreational services in an environment of certainty …

External Borrowing And Economic Development: The Case Of Jordan, Riad Almomani

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This study examines Jordan's development policy and analyzes the role of Jordan's external public borrowing in economic development during the period 1967-1983. Mainly, Jordan's rapidly increasing external indebtedness is related to its development strategy which is based on the concept of unbalanced growth. This strategy has emphasized' the concentration of development resources (including external loans) in certain areas (e.g. Amman and Zarka) and certain economic sectors (e.g. industry and service) which are assumed to be growth propelling. The agricultural sector has been seriously ignored in Jordan's development process.

Jordan's growth has been quite impressive, but the problems of poverty and …

An Economic Analysis Of Foreign Assets, Money Supply, And Inflation In Saudi Arabia, 1963-83, Said Ahmed M. Khalofa

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Until the discovery of oil in Saudi Arabia, the West knew very little about the economic aspects of the country. Since then, foreign assets have grown , and the balance of payment of Saudi Arabia have reflected an accumulation of continuously rising surpluses, particularly after 1973. Real income increased and consequentIy, supply and demand for money increased.

During the period 1974-77, the Saudi economy experienced a high rate of inflation, but during the subsequent years (the late 1970s and the early 1980s) the Saudi inflation rate began declining.

The main objective of the present study is to conduct an empirical …

The Welfare Impacts Of Environmental Regulation In An Open Economy, Nicole Glineur

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The major theoretical and practical economic issues on pollution have apparently been sorted out. However, the bulk of the literature in environmental economics shares a shortcoming: the disregard of the welfare implications and consequences of pollution control.

Traditionally, pollution is viewed as a joint product. In this study, the issue of trade and environmental regulations is cast as a problem of input regulation, and the subsequent welfare implications of input regulation are then derived. The purpose of the present research is to emphasize the welfare consequences of pollution control in the context of international or interregional trade. The Batra and …

Does Inflation Tend To Perpetuate Itself? The Case Of Latin America, Ebrahim Harraf

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of this study was threefold: (1) to test the existing theory which explains inflation as a result of its self-generating nature; (2) to investigate the contribution of foreign trade upon inflation; and (3) to test the casual relationship between the rate of inflation and the deficit. A system of four equations has been used to explain the relationship between the price level and the monetary expansion, between the rate of growth of the monetary base and the rate of the monetary expansion, the deficit and the monetary base, and, finally, between the deficit and the price level. As …

The Role Of Patronage In Public Wage Determination, John Fessick

Business and Economics Honors Papers

Patronage politics and government behavior, in general, lend themselves to economic model building and empirical analysis. They both require human processes to function. They are human institutions - shaped and molded by people. Because human beings are so vital a part of government and the behavior of decision-makers within that institution, assumptions of self-interest and the rational man lead to important implications which are necessary to the understanding and reshaping of government in order for it to work for the "common good." Only by understanding the framework of government and presenting an accurate picture of human behavior within that framework …

On Getting Government Off Our Backs, Hyman P. Minsky Ph.D.

Hyman P. Minsky Archive

Prepared for delivery at the University of Nebraska, Omaha, Nebraska, Thurs. April 11, 1985.

Also presented here is an earlier version showing edits and rewriting.

Implications Of The Farm Crisis For Rural Communities In South Dakota, Thomas L. Dobbs

Economics Commentator (1972- 2016)

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of The Multinational Corporations On Leading Issues And Policy Making In Less Developed Countries (A Case Study On Kenya), Wamukota Francis W. Wambalaba

Dissertations and Theses

The era of Multinational Corporations (MNCs) is so significant in the development of the Less Developed Countries (LDCs) as was the era of the Industrial Revolution in the development of the now More Developed countries (MDCs). It could be referred to as one of the major economic frontiers in the LDCs as is the computer frontier in the MDCs now. Naturally, there are problems of distrust, fear of eventual crisis, uncertainty of the correct path and a pain in policy making. Coupled with the North/South delicate relationship, the MNC's acceptability in LDCs is of mixed feelings.

In this paper, we …

Time Series Regression With A Unit Root, Peter C.B. Phillips

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

This paper studies the random walk in a general time series setting that allows for weakly dependent and heterogeneously distributed innovations. It is shown that simple least squares regression consistently estimates a unit root under very general conditions in spite of the presence of autocorrelated errors. The limiting distribution of the standardized estimator and the associated regression t-statistic are found using functional central limit theory. New tests of the random walk hypothesis are developed which permit a wide class of dependent and heterogeneous innovation sequences. A new limiting distribution theory is constructed based on the concept of continuous data recording. …

Aggregation And Linearity In The Provision Of Intertemporal Incentives, Bengt Holmstrom, Paul R. Milgrom

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

One of the main findings of the principal-agent literature has been that incentive schemes should be sensitive to all information that bears on the agent’s actions. As a manifestation of this principle, incentive schemes tend to take quite complex (non-linear) forms. In contrast, real world schemes are often based on aggregate information with a rather simple structure. This paper considers the optimality of linear schemes that use only aggregated information. The hypothesis is that linear schemes are to be expected in situations where the agent has a rich set of actions to choose from, because richness in action choice allows …

Do We Reject Too Often? Small Sample Bias In Tests Of Rational Expectations, N. Gregory Mankiw, Matthew D. Shapiro

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We examine the small sample properties of tests of rational expectations models. We show using Monte Carlo experiments that these tests can be extremely biased toward rejection for sample sizes typical in applied research. These biases are important when the time series examined are highly autoregressive. We also show that these tests are even more biased with detrended data. We present correct small sample critical values for our canonical problem.

An Axiomatization Of Utility And Subjective Probability Based On Objective Probability, Mamoru Kaneko

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

This paper provides an axiomatic model based on an extraneous random device generating objective probabilities for the derivation of expected utilities and subjective probabilities. Four basic axioms fully determine a real-valued utility function and a finitely additive subjective probability measure. The restrictions of these axioms to lotteries depending only upon events of the random device yield the von Neumann-Morgenstern axioms.

Coordinating Coordination Failures In Keynesian Models, Russell Cooper, Andrew John

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

This paper focuses on the importance of strategic complementarity in agents’ payoff functions as a basis for macroeconomic coordination failures. We first analyze an abstract game and find that inefficient equilibria and a multiplier process may arise in the presence of strategic complementarities (essentially positively sloped reaction curves). We then place additional economic content on complementarities arising from production functions, matching technologies and commodity demand functions in a multi-sector economy.

The Distribution Of Fiml In The Leading Case, Peter C.B. Phillips

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

In a recent article (1984a) Phillips showed that the distribution of the limited information maximum likelihood (LIML) estimator of the coefficients of the endogenous variables in a single structural equation is multivariate Cauchy in the leading (totally unidentified) case. The purpose of the present note is to show that the same result holds for the full information maximum likelihood (FIML) estimator. Our proof relies on the theory of invariant measures on a Stiefel manifold. This approach provides a major simplification of the derivation of the LIML result given in the earlier article and extends to the FIML case without difficulty. …

Two Stage And Related Estimators And Their Applications, Adrian Pagan

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Applied econometric research frequently encounters the difficulty that estimation of the parameters of interest is complex owing to the presence of incidental parameters. It is tempting therefore to try to circumvent the difficulties by proceeding in two stages. In the first, some estimates are made of the incidental parameters. In the second, these estimates are treated as though they were population values, leading to a large reduction in the dimension of the unknown parameter space, possibly even down to that of the parameters of interest only. The properties of such a staged process (particularly as they relate to issues arising …