The equilibrium growth model is modified and used to explain the cyclical variances of a set of economic time series, the covariances between real output and the other series, and the autocovariance of output. The model is fitted to quarterly data for the post-war U.S. economy. Crucial features of the model are the assumption that more than one time period is required for the construction of new productive capital, and the non-time-separable utility function that admits greater intertemporal substitution of leisure. The fit is surprisingly good in light of the model's simplicity and the small number of free parameters. THAT WINE IS NOT MADE in a day has long been recognized by economists (e.g., Bdhm-Bawerk [6]). But, neither are ships nor factories built in a day. A thesis of this essay is that the assumption of multiple-period construction is crucial for explaining aggregate fluctuations. A general equilibrium model is developed and fitted to U.S. quarterly data for the post-war period. The co-movements of the fluctuations for the fitted model are quantitatively consistent with the corresponding co-movements for U.S. data. In addition, the serial correlations of cyclical output for the model match well with those observed. Our approach integrates growth and business cycle theory. Like standard growth theory, a representative infinitely-lived household is assumed. As fluctuations in employment are central to the business cycle, the stand-in consumer values not only consumption but also leisure. One very important modification to the standard growth model is that multiple periods are required to build new capital goods and only finished capital goods are part of the productive capital stock. Each stage of production requires a period and utilizes resources. Halffinished ships and factories are not part of the productive capital stock. Section 2 contains a short critique of the commonly used investment technologies, and presents evidence that single-period production, even with adjustment costs, is inadequate. The preference-technology-information structure of the model is presented in Section 3. A crucial feature of preferences is the non-time-separable utility function that admits greater intertemporal substitution of leisure. The exogenous stochastic components in the model are shocks to technology and imperfect indicators of productivity. The two technology shocks differ in their persistence.

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Time to build and aggregate fluctuations

Most wars are now civil wars. Even though international wars attract enormous global attention, they have become infrequent and brief. Civil wars usually attract less attention, but they have become increasingly common and typically go on for years. This report argues that civil war is now an important issue for development. War retards development, but conversely, development retards war. This double causation gives rise to virtuous and vicious circles. Where development succeeds, countries become progressively safer from violent conflict, making subsequent development easier. Where development fails, countries are at high risk of becoming caught in a conflict trap in which war wrecks the economy and increases the risk of further war. The global incidence of civil war is high because the international community has done little to avert it. Inertia is rooted in two beliefs: that we can safely 'let them fight it out among themselves' and that 'nothing can be done' because civil war is driven by ancestral ethnic and religious hatreds. The purpose of this report is to challenge these beliefs.

Breaking the Conflict Trap: Civil War and Development Policy

This paper offers an explanation of the use of mandatory-retirement clauses in labor contracts. It argues that the date of mandatory retirement is chosen to correspond to the date of voluntary retirement, but the nature of the optimal wage profile results in a discrepancy between spot wage and spot VMP (value of the worker's marginal product). This is because it is preferable to pay workers less than VMP when young and more than VMP when old. By doing so the "agency" problem is solved, so the contract with mandatory retirement is Pareto efficient. A theory of agency is presented and empirical evidence which supports the hypothesis is provided.

Why Is There Mandatory Retirement

It is widely believed that current disparities in economic, political, and social outcomes reflect distinct institutions. Institutions are invoked to explain why some countries are rich and others poor, some democratic and others dictatorial. But arguments of this sort gloss over the question of what institutions are, how they come about, and why they persist. They also fail to explain why institutions are influenced by the past, why it is that they can sometimes change, why they differ so much from society to society, and why it is hard to study them empirically and devise a policy aimed at altering them. This 2006 book seeks to overcome these problems, which have exercised economists, sociologists, political scientists, and a host of other researchers who use the social sciences to study history, law, and business administration. It presents a multi-disciplinary perspective to study endogenous institutions and their dynamics.

/pdf/institutions-and-the-path-to-the-modern-economy-4dlla029fs.pdf

Institutions and the path to the modern economy

This paper examines adherence to social customs. Models of social customs are found to be inherently multi-equilibrial. It is found that social customs which are disadvantageous to the individual may nevertheless persist without erosion, if individuals are sanctioned by loss of reputation for disobedience of the custom. One example of such a social custom is the persistence of a fair (rather than a market-clearing) wage. In this fashion, involuntary unemployment is explained.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1885667.pdf

A Theory of Social Custom, of which Unemployment may be One Consequence

A General Disequilibrium Model of Income and Employment

This paper develops a general equilibrium model of the allocation of resources among appropriative and productive activities. The model emphasizes the distinction between offensive weapons, which are the instruments of predation, and fortifications, which provide defense against predation. The analysis of this model shows how the equilibrium security of claims to property is determined. The analysis focuses on the possibility of a nonaggressive equilibrium, in which no resources are allocated to offensive weapons and claims to property are fully secure. We also analyze the complex relation between economic welfare and the security of claims to property. We find, for example, that a relatively poor agent could be better off in an equilibrium with less secure claims to property.

Swords or Plowshares? A Theory of the Security of Claims to Property

This paper analyses the allocative and distributive effects of foreign aid within a positive theory of insurrections. In this theory, foreign aid causes a reallocation of resources from production to an intensified struggle over distributive shares. Moreover, although the ruler of the recipient economy regards foreign aid as just another possible source of income for his parasitic clientele, the threat of insurrection induces a policy response that increases the income of the general population. The analysis shows how these allocative and distributive effects depend on the technology of insurrection.

Foreign aid and insurrection

Robin hood and the redistribution of property income

This paper develops a general model of multimarket disequilibrium and uses it to explain the disequilibrium behavior of prices and interest. Section I summarizes the conventional distinctions between the dynamic loanable-funds and liquidity-preference theories of interest and between the dynamic quantity and expenditure theories of prices. Sections II and III develop the concepts of notional demand and gradual market clearing, which are essential in the conventional analysis. The next three sections develop a choice-theoretic theory of effective demands, starting in Section IV with a generalization of Clower's dual-decision hypothesis to a multimarket context. Section V analyzes the determination of quantity constraints on individual transactions implied by market disequilibriums. Section VI deals with aggregation of the individual effective-demands functions. Finally, Section VII shows how the aggregate effective demands determine the dynamic behavior of the interest rate and price level, and Section VII...

https://www.jstor.org/stable/info/1830266

Herschel I. Grossman

Papers

A General Disequilibrium Model of Income and Employment

Swords or Plowshares? A Theory of the Security of Claims to Property

Foreign aid and insurrection

Robin hood and the redistribution of property income

Money, Interest, and Prices in Market Disequilibrium