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The Gettysburg Economic Review, Volume 5, 2011

Gettysburg Economic Review

No abstract provided.

Local Technological And Demographic Effects On Electricity Transmission: A Spatially Lagged Local Estimation Of New England Marginal Losses, Jacob P. Hochard

Gettysburg Economic Review

Electricity transmission is subject to distribution losses and congestion costs. Economists have prior theorized that these transmission imperfections could create divided markets with electricity generating spatial oligopolists. This concern has been largely dismissed because of recent technological advances in electricity transmission. The effects of local technological and demographic indicators on electricity transmission costs remains both commonly accepted as negligible and spatially untested. This analysis employs a spatially lagged local estimation of New England’s marginal electricity losses with respect to both technological and demographic indicators. The results of this analysis are consistent with the widely accepted notion that technological advances have …

Friedrich Von Hayek: The Socialist-Calculation Debate, Knowledge Arguments, And Modern Economic Development, Cara A. Elliott

Gettysburg Economic Review

At the close of the nineteenth and the commencement of the twentieth century, socialism began to gain momentum as a large-scale movement in Europe and the United States. This popularity was supported by an increased influence of the working class in society, which put pressure for representation upon European parliaments and began to secure concrete improvements in labor protection laws. Moreover, socialist proponents looked hopefully towards the living example of the Soviet Union, which began its socialist experiment in 1917 following the success of the Bolshevik Revolution. Socialism, which found its economic grounding in the legacies of such men as …

Monetary And Fiscal Policies: Ordinary Recessions And Financial Crises, Svetoslav I. Semov

Gettysburg Economic Review

This paper uses two different samples to study the effects of monetary and fiscal policies on the profiles of recessions and recoveries. Several results emerge from the econometric analysis presented. First, monetary policy during ordinary recessions and banking crises is a powerful tool with lasting effects that extend to recovery growth rates. However, the effect of monetary policy during financial crises is strongly diminished in the case of forbearance – banks left to function despite being technically insolvent. Second, the effectiveness of fiscal policy is reversed – it is a powerful tool during banking crises, but it does not seem …

"Does It Pay To Be Informed?" Expenditure Efficiency In The Us Mutual Fund Industry, Jan Cerny

Gettysburg Economic Review

The mutual fund industry would like us to believe that fund expenses are justifiable by their extensive management expertise, security analysis and the consequent delivery of returns that exceed the market performance. Management know-how is costly and thus it drives up the expenditure of actively managed mutual funds and potentially lowers their net returns. Nevertheless the fund managers argue that their contributions to the returns fully outweigh their costs and in general their trading strategies add value to the investors. On the other hand many academics hold that such claims are fundamentally misleading and actively managed funds cannot continuously outperform …

History Of Usury: The Transition Of Usury Through Ancient Greece, The Rise Of Christianity And Islam, And The Expansion Of Long-Distance Trade And Capitalism, Cheryl A. Olechnowicz

Gettysburg Economic Review

Society and its ideas, markets, and institutions are in the constant process of change. These transforming factors contribute to the evolution of economics. Usury is one prominent economic issue that demonstrates this evolution. As it has developed, usury, the lending of money at interest or excessive interest, has been debated for almost two millennia.

During the lifetime of Aristotle, 384-322 B.C., the lending of money for profit was believed to be unnatural and dishonorable. Aristotle and his beliefs of usury provided a foundation of ideas for future perspectives on the practice. This negative connotation associated with usury continued in history …