Economics Commons^™

Unilateral Deviations With Perfect Information, Pradeep Dubey, Ori Haimanko

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

For extensive form games with perfect information, consider a learning process in which, at any iteration, each player unilaterally deviates to a best response to his current conjectures of others’ strategies; and then updates his conjectures in accordance with the induced play of the game. We show that, for generic payoffs, the outcome of the game becomes stationary in finite time, and is consistent with Nash equilibrium. In general, if payoffs have ties or if players observe more of each others’ strategies than is revealed by plays of the game, the same result holds provided a rationality constraint is imposed …

Does Democracy Engender Equality?, John E. Roemer

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Many suppose that democracy is an ethos which includes, inter alia, a degree of economic equality among citizens. In contrast, we conceive of democracy as ruthless political competition between groups of citizens, organized into parties. We inquire whether such competition, which we assume to be concerned with distributive matters, will engender economic equality in the long run. The society consists of an infinite sequence of generations, each comprised of adults and their children. Adults care about household consumption, and the future wages of their children, which are determined by educational policy. A given generation is characterized by the distribution of …

Alternative Methods For Measuring Productivity Growth, William D. Nordhaus

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

The present study is a contribution to the theory of the measurement of productivity growth. First, it examines the welfare-theoretic basis for measuring productivity growth and shows that the ideal welfare-theoretic measure is a chain index of productivity growth rates of different sectors which uses current output weights. Second, it lays out a technique for decomposing productivity growth which separates aggregate productivity growth into three factors — the pure productivity effect, the effect of changing shares, and the effect of different productivity levels. Finally, it shows how to apply the theoretically correct measure of productivity growth and indicates which of …

Structural Change In Tail Behavior And The Asian Financial Crisis, Carmela E. Quintos, Zhenhong Fan, Peter C.B. Phillips

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

This paper explores tests of the hypothesis that the tail thickness of a distribution is constant over time. Using Hill’s conditional maximum likelihood estimator for the tail index of a distribution, tests of tail shape constancy are constructed that allow for an unknown breakpoint. The recursive test is shown to be inconsistent in one direction, and only a one-sided test is recommended. Specifically, the test can be used when the alternative hypothesis is that the tail index decreases over time. A rolling and sequential version of the test is consistent in both directions. The methods are illustrated on recent stock …

Productivity Growth And The New Economy, William D. Nordhaus

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

The present study is the third in a series of three papers devoted to issues in the measurement of productivity and productivity growth. The major findings are as follows. First, this study shows that the new data set used here, which develops data on total output, business sector output, and “well-measured” output, and relying on income-side data, provides a useful supplement to existing data sets. Second, there has clearly been a rebound in labor-productivity growth in recent years. All three sectoral definitions show a major acceleration in labor productivity in the last three years of the period (1996-98) relative to …

New Data And Output Concepts For Understanding Productivity Trends, William D. Nordhaus

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

The present study is the second is a series of three papers devoted to issues in the measurement of productivity and productivity growth. The contributions of the present paper are three. First, it introduces a new approach to measuring industrial productivity based on income-side data that are published by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). The data are internally consistent in that both inputs and outputs are income-side measures of value added, whereas the usual productivity measures combine expenditure-side output measures with income-side input measures. Second, because of interest in the “new economy,” we have also constructed a set of …

Do The Rich Save More?, Karen E. Dynan, Jonathan Skinner, Stephen P. Zeldes

Dartmouth Scholarship

The question of whether higher–lifetime income households save a larger fraction of their income was the subject of much debate in the 1950s and 1960s, and while not resolved, it remains central to the evaluation of tax and macroeconomic policies. We resolve this long‐standing question using new empirical methods applied to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, the Survey of Consumer Finances, and the Consumer Expenditure Survey. We find a strong positive relationship between saving rates and lifetime income and a weaker but still positive relationship between the marginal propensity to save and lifetime income. There is little support for …

November 2000, Syracuse Department Of Economics

Economics - All Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Graphical Analysis Of Some Basic Results In Social Choice, Estelle Cantillon, Antonio Rangel

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We use a simple graphical approach to represent Social Welfare Functions that satisfy Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives and Anonymity. This approach allows us to provide simple and illustrative proofs of May’s Theorem, of variants of classic impossibility results, and of a recent result on the robustness of Majority Rule due to Maskin (1995). In each case, geometry provides new insights on the working and interplay of the axioms, and suggests new results including a new characterization of the entire class of Majority Rule SWFs, a strengthening of May’s Theorem, and a new version of Maskin’s Theorem.

Economic Impact Of The Proposed Cme North American Merchant Energy, Llc Gas-Powered Electric Power Plant On Berrien County, George A. Erickcek

Reports

No abstract provided.

Mercado Telefónico En México: Diez Años Después De La Privatización De Telmex Privatización De Telmex [The Telephone Market: 10 Years After The Privatization Of Telmex], Leonardo E. Torre Cepeda, Armando R. Lopez-Velasco

School of Economics and Finance Faculty Publications

• El sector de las telecomunicaciones en México experimentó una profunda transformación durante la década de los años noventa: el monopolio público telefónico fue privatizado (1990), se emitió una nueva ley del sector (1995), se creó un nuevo ente regulador (1996) y se abrió a la competencia el segmento de larga distancia (1997).

• El cambio estructural en el sector trajo consigo avances importantes en materia de densidad, calidad y precios de los servicios. Sin embargo, estos avances han sido insuficientes para impedir que en México sigamos contando con una baja densidad telefónica y precios elevados de los servicios, en …

Elements Of A Service Referral Algorithm For A Frontline Decision Support System For Washington Workfirst, Randall W. Eberts, Christopher J. O'Leary, Wei-Jang Huang

Reports

No abstract provided.

A Comparative Review Of Structural Changes In South Korea And South Dakota Agriculture, Larry Janssen, Yong Kwon

Economics Staff Paper Series (1969 - 2017)

Structural change is an ongoing feature of economic development around the world. Despite vast differences in the structural organization of South Korean and South Dakota (U.S) agriculture, many structural changes are similar. This paper includes a comparative review of selected structural changes in Korean and South Dakota (U.S.) agriculture and the relative impact of forces affecting structural changes in both nations. Reduced economic impact of farm sector, farm population and farm size trends, full-time vs. part-time farming, changing food consumption, imports and exports are some of the major structural trends examined. Implications of changing agricultural structure in South Korea and …

Are Worker's Wages Driven By National Or Local Factors?, Dwight Adamson, David Clark, Mark Partridge

Economics Staff Paper Series (1969 - 2017)

Previous studies of the linkage of national and regional labor markets have focused on aggregate employment growth and migration. By focusing on the separate effects of national and regional labor market economic conditions on wages, this study differs from much of the previous literature. In particular, this paper will extend the previous literature in two key directions. First, it will explore whether local economic activity and location-specific amenities have different effects on metropolitan and nonmetropolitan area wages. Second, it will determine whether these effects on workers varied by education level between metro and nonmetro workers. These issues will be explored …

The Effect Of Educational And Residential Characteristics On The Private Return To Education, Dwight Adamson, James Swenson

Economics Staff Paper Series (1969 - 2017)

This paper attempts to investigate the individual wage rate of return to college education. Over the last twenty years, the return to college education has increased dramatically. We propose to investigate how the return to college differs across educational and residential characteristics. We first consider differential returns to an associate, bachelor, advanced, and professional degrees and what characteristics of an individual's college education influence the rate of return to different degrees. Secondly, we focus on the variation in the return to college education in different areas of residence by comparing the return to education across regions and metropolitan and nonmetropolitan …

Individual Characteristics, Spatial Labor Market Differences, And Amenity Influences On Nonmetro/Metro Migration Patterns, Dwight Adamson, David Clark, Mark Partridge

Economics Staff Paper Series (1969 - 2017)

Previous studies of the linkage of national and regional labor markets have focused on aggregate employment growth and migration. By focusing on the separate effects of national and regional labor market economic conditions on wages, this study differs from much of the previous literature. In particular, this paper will extend the previous literature in two key directions. First, it will explore whether local economic activity and location-specific amenities have different effects on metropolitan and nonmetropolitan area wages. Second, it will determine how regional labor markets and locality amenities affect metro and non-metro migration of workers. These issues will be explored …

The Effect Of China's Economic Reform Program On The Employment Structure In China's Urban Areas, Feng Xu, Scott Fausti, Dwight Adamson, H. Kim

Economics Staff Paper Series (1969 - 2017)

A review of China's economic and political reforms since 1978 is provided and then linked to structural change in China's urban labor force as a result of the reform process. Analysis of data on urban labor allocation in China from 1978-97 indicates labor is being reallocated from the public sector to the private sector at a very rapid pace. The data indicates the urban labor has doubled and employment in the private sector has increased from nearly zero to a little over 30% in a 20 year period. The data also suggest that Chinese estimates of urban employment and unemployment …

Impressions Of Korea, Larry Janssen

Economics Staff Paper Series (1969 - 2017)

No abstract provided.

The Return To College Education In South Dakota And Surrounding States, Dwight W. Adamson

Economics Commentator (1972- 2016)

No abstract provided.

The Return To College Education In South Dakota And Surrounding States, Dwight W. Adamson

Economics Commentator (1972- 2016)

No abstract provided.

On The Measurement Of Rent Seeking And Its Social Opportunity Cost, Russell S. Sobel, Thomas A. Garrett

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Utilizing 4-digit industry data by county, we compare the allocation of resources across industries in state capital areas with noncapital areas. We are able to identify which industries are expanded and contracted relative to noncapital areas. Our results provide the first direct evidence and measurement of the forgone productive activity resulting from resources being reallocated toward rent seeking and interest group activity. Our data also allow us to measure total rent seeking, and also to isolate the extent of indirect and in-kind rent seeking, which can account for part of the Tullock paradox.

Workplace Safety Policy: Past, Present, And Future, Thomas J. Kniesner, John D. Leeth

Economics - All Scholarship

With an annual budget of about $400 million, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is about 5 percent the size of the Environmental Protection Agency, another federal agency created by President Richard M. Nixon in 1970, the "Year of the Environment." Nearly all workers in the United States come under OSHA's juridction, with some notable exceptions, including miners, transportation workers, many public employees, and people who are self-employed. OSHA is currently responsible for ptoecting over 100 million workers at 6 million work sites with the help of only about 2,000 workplace health and safety inspectors. Nevertheless, suppoers of OSHA …

Quality Of The Business Environment Versus Quality Of Life In A Dynamic Model Of Urban Composition And Growth Do Firms And Households Like The Same Cities?, Stuart S. Rosenthal, Stuart A. Gabriel

Economics - All Scholarship

Appropriately constructed measures of the quality of life and the quality of the business environment should be important determinants of the growth and composition of population across urban areas. This paper examines that question by extending theoretical measures of household quality of life to construct the first ever measure of the quality of the business environment? the value that firms place on the basket of amenities in a metropolitan area. An annual panel of quality of life and quality of business environment values for 37 cities in the United States is then constructed for the 1977 to 1995 period.

A …

Experimental Foreign Exchange Markets, Eric O'N. Fisher, Frank S. Kelly

Economics

The paper analyzes experimental markets where subjects buy and sell two different assets. The assets' properties vary across treatments, and their relative price is the exchange rate. Although both assets uniformly exhibit bubbles, the exchange rate satisfies cross‐currency arbitrage. There is no evidence of a positive risk premium in these markets, and almost all subjects' forecasts of the exchange rate are rational.

Gender As An Impediment To Labor Market Success: Why Do Young Women Report Greater Harm?, Heather Antecol, Peter Kuhn

CMC Faculty Publications and Research

Compared to older women, young female job seekers are more than three times as likely to report that their ability to find a good new job is compromised by their gender. This phenomenon cannot be statistically attributed to observed personal or job characteristics, or to any “objective” measure of discrimination. Further, women's reports of gender‐induced advantage, and men's reports of gender‐induced harm, are also more prevalent among the young. A possible interpretation of all these patterns is that young people are more likely to interpret a given departure from gender‐neutral treatment as causally affected by their gender.

New Directions In Reemployment Policy, Stephen A. Woodbury

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Women's Work And Economic Development, Kristin Mammen, Christina Paxson

Publications and Research

Using a cross-country dataset and microdata from India and Thailand, we examine how women's work status changes with economic development. Several clear patterns emerge: women's labor force participation first declines and then rises with development; women move from work in family enterprises to work as paid employees; fertility declines; and gender gaps in education narrow. Women's education levels, and those of their spouses, appear to be important determinants of women's labor market activities. Broad welfare indicators, such as mortality rates and education levels, indicate that women's well-being improves on average with development, both in absolute terms and relative to men.

Uncertainty Over The Quality Of Labor Inputs: A Nonmonopoly Theory Of Union Wages And Hours Worked, Dwight Adamson, Scott Fausti

Economics Staff Paper Series (1969 - 2017)

A theoretical model of labor demand under uncertainty which incorporates the propositions found in the union voice literature is presented. The model generates a positive union effect on wages and hours worked without union monopoly power. The model provides a more detailed conceptual framework for explaining why the union voice effect may improve efficiency within the firm than that currently found in the literature.

Asymmetric Information And Wage Differences Across Groups: Labor Market Discrimination Or Nondiscriminatory Market Outcome, Dwight Adamson, Scott Fausti

Economics Staff Paper Series (1969 - 2017)

Labor market discrimination is defined as a failure to receive compensation equivalent to workers' productivity. In an efficient labor market, a worker's productivity attributes-labor force experience, education, tenure, etc.-and innate ability will be duly rewarded regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, or other individual characteristics. Workers receive pay commensurate with individual productivity. Employers do discriminate in pay and employment between individual productivity characteristics and ability. This is not labor market discrimination. It reflects market efficiency, since workers with productivity attributes and abilities that are highly demanded by employers receive the highest wage rates. It is also well known that females and …

Forecasting New Zealand's Real Gdp, Aaron F. Schiff, Peter C.B. Phillips

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Recent time series methods are applied to the problem of forecasting New Zealand’s real GDP. Model selection is conducted within autoregressive (AR) and vector autoregressive (VAR) classes, allowing for evolution in the form of the models over time. The selections are performed using the Schwarz (1978) BIC and the Phillips-Ploberger (1996) PIC criteria. The forecasts generated by the data-determined AR models and an international VAR model are found to be competitive with forecasts from fixed format models and forecasts produced by the NZIER. Two illustrations of the methodology in conditional forecasting settings are performed with the VAR models. The first …