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Full-Text Articles in Macroeconomics

A Note On The Valuation Of Collective Goods: Overlooked Input Market Free Riding For Non-Individually Incrementable Goods, Philip E. Graves Jan 2009

A Note On The Valuation Of Collective Goods: Overlooked Input Market Free Riding For Non-Individually Incrementable Goods, Philip E. Graves

PHILIP E GRAVES

For at least fifty years economists have argued that vertically-aggregated marginal willingness to pay, when set equal to marginal provision cost, will result in optimal public good provision levels. This methodological approach would be expected to yield an exact analog, in terms of optimal levels of public good provision, to efficient provision of private goods in a perfect market setting. There is, however, a potentially serious flaw in the approach as actually practiced, since initial incomes are implicitly–and wrongly–taken to be optimal. From a given income, the output demand revelation problem has long been recognized–that there will be difficulty inferring …


Voodoo Multipliers Revisited: Public Policy For Recessions And Boomtimes, Philip E. Graves Jan 2009

Voodoo Multipliers Revisited: Public Policy For Recessions And Boomtimes, Philip E. Graves

PHILIP E GRAVES

There is no abstract for this brief column.


Economic Growth And Business Cycles: The Labor Supply Decision With Two Types Of Technological Progress, Philip E. Graves Jan 2009

Economic Growth And Business Cycles: The Labor Supply Decision With Two Types Of Technological Progress, Philip E. Graves

PHILIP E GRAVES

An informal model is described that leads to multiple macroeconomic equilibria as a consequence of random variation in the relative amounts of technological change for new and existing goods. The novel observation is that the rate of introduction and market penetration of new goods vis-a-vis technological advance for existing goods importantly affects the labor supply decision. A relatively rapid influx of new goods will generally increase labor supply, while relatively more technological advance for existing goods will reduce labor supply to the market. These impacts are seen to provide insights into Rostow's stages of growth. Short run variations in the …


An Implementable Institutional Reform That Transfers Control Of Government Spending Levels From Politicians To Voters, Philip E. Graves Jan 2009

An Implementable Institutional Reform That Transfers Control Of Government Spending Levels From Politicians To Voters, Philip E. Graves

PHILIP E GRAVES

Elected representatives have little incentive to pursue the interests of those electing them once they are elected. This well-known principle-agent problem leads, in a variety of theories of government, to non-optimally large levels of government expenditure. An implication is that budgetary rules are seen as necessary to constrain politicians' tax and spending behavior. Popular among such constraints are various Balanced Budget Amendment proposals. These approaches, however, are shown here to have serious limitations, including failure to address the central concern of spending level. An alternative approach is advanced here that relies on a Coase-like mechanism that transfers control of government …