Showing papers in "Research Papers in Economics in 1973"

Is growth obsolete

Abstract: A long decade ago economic growth was the reigning fashion of political economy. Growth measures nearly always involve diversions of current resources from other uses, sacrifices of current consumption for the benefit of succeeding generations of consumers. In this chapter, the authors' measure understates economic welfare and its growth to the extent that education and medical care are direct rather than indirect sources of consumer satisfaction. They have constructed a primitive and experimental measure of economic welfare, in which they attempt to allow for the more obvious discrepancies between Gross national product (GNP) and economic welfare. The authors' adjustments to GNP fall into three general categories: reclassification of GNP expenditures as consumption, investment, and intermediate; imputation for the services of consumer capital, for leisure, and for the product of household work; correction for some of the disamenities of urbanization. The omission of leisure and of nonmarket productive activity from measures of production conveys the impression that economists are blindly materialistic.

The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment: A Question of Life and Death

Abstract: The debate over the legitimacy or propriety of the death penalty may be almost as old as the death penalty itself and, in the view of the increasing trend towards its complete abolition, perhaps as outdated. Not surprisingly, and as is generally recognized by contemporary writers on this topic, the philosophical and moral arguments for or against the death penalty have remained remarkably unchanged since the beginning of the debate. One outstanding issue has become, however, the subject of increased investigation, especially in recent years, due to its objective nature and the dominant role it has played in shaping the analytical and practical case against the death penalty. That issue is the deterrent effect of capital punishment, a reexamination of which, in both theory and practice, is the object of the paper.

Hierarchical Integration of Production Planning and Scheduling.

Abstract: : The paper describes the development of a hierarchical planning and scheduling system for a multiple plant, multiple product, seasonal demand situation. In this hierarchical structure, optimal decisions at an aggregate level (planning) provide constraints for detailed decision making (scheduling). (Modified author abstract)

The Correlation between Health and Schooling

Abstract: This paper has two purposes. The first is to develop a methodological framework that can be used to introduce and discuss alternative explanations of the correlation between health and schooling. The second is to test these explanations empirically in order to select the most relevant ones and obtain quantitative estimates of different effects. The empirical work is limited to one rather unique body of data and uses two measures of health that are far from ideal. The methodological framework can, however, serve as a point of departure for future research when longitudinal samples with more refined measures of current and past health and background characteristics become available.

Price competitiveness in export trade among industrial countries

Abstract: the revaluation of the German mark initiated a period of greater flexibility in exchange rates, and about one year since a new rate structure was agreed at the Smithsonian conference. Academic researchers and government officials everywhere are scrutinizing current trade data for signs indicating the effectiveness of the realignment, particularly any solid start toward reversals in the deficit of the United States or the surpluses of Japan, Germany, and Canada. The magnitude of the prospective total effect had been assessed largely on the assumption, unconfirmed by empirical work, that the response of trade flows to changes in the exchange rate would resemble that to changes in foreign trade prices in general; and the timing of the effect was almost pure guesswork.

Working the street; a developmental view of police behavior

Abstract: This work is to be published as a chapter in Herbert Jacobs (Ed) Volume III of the Annals of Criminal Justice (Beverly Hills, California: Sage Publishing Co)

A Disequilibrium Model of Demand for Factors of Production

Abstract: Production technology and profit maximizing behavior imply that derived demands for factors of production are necessarily interdependent. Yet the literature on employment and investment functions has not fully appreciated or exploited this interdependence: most employment models assume fixed capital stock, while most investment models assume instantaneous adjustment of employment. In fact, factors of production are neither completely fixed nor perfectly variable, and timeadjustment patterns of different inputs are interconnected; thus both input stocks and input rates of utilization are interrelated. If all these interrelationships are properly considered, theoretical and empirical evaluation of input adjustment patterns, factor responses to price and output changes, and the distinctions between shortand long-run behavior all can be investigated in a mutually consistent manner. In our research (see Nadiri and Rosen), we have developed a general model of factor adjustments which incorporates all potential interactions between stocks and utilization rates. Factors of production explicitly treated are employment of both production and nonproduction workers, hours worked per man, capital stock, inventories and a measure of capital utilization. The model is based on neoclassical production theory in the presence of adjustment costs. In this report we sketch the main features of the model, illustrate its usefulness in empirical estimation of factor demands, and present some empirical results.

Méthode de hiérarchisation des éléments d'un système : essai de prospective du système de l'énergie nucléaire dans son contexte sociétal

Abstract: La prevision economique resulte habituellement de simples extrapolations de tendances ou de modeles plus elabores, la plupart des variables prises en compte sont le plus souvent des variables quantitatives et peu nombreuses, alors qu'en pratique, les processus reels a etudier font appel a des variables qualitatives nombreuses et sont de plus en plus complexes et diversifies ; les resultats obtenus a partir de tels modeles ou d'extrapolations de tendances sont insuffisants. Le probleme general que nous nous proposons d'aborder est de determiner dans quelle mesure certains facteurs pourraient inflechir dans un sens ou dans l'autre les courbes de developpements prevus pour la fin du siecle et concernant certains phenomenes sociaux, economiques et ecologiques. S'agissant donc de prospective, une reflexion methodologique prealable s'impose, c'est l'objet d'une premiere partie de ce rapport, consacree a l'expose de la methode prospective adoptee, c'est-a-dire a l'explication des principes de base et des choix qui doivent guider la demarche. Une deuxieme partie se propose d'illustrer la methodologie par un cas concret : le systeme de l'energie nucleaire.

Models of Consumer Behaviour

Abstract: In the history of demand analysis two threads, related but separable, can be discerned. These are first the work of economists interested in the discovery of general laws governing the operation of markets, particularly agricultural markets; and second the work of those, originally statisticians, interested in the psychological laws governing what has come to be called consumer preference. This dichotomy continues to characterise the subject. As computing opportunities and skills have expanded, empirical research has produced more sophisticated demand equations while, at the same time, theoretical economists and mathematicians have enormously increased our knowledge of the pure mathematics of preference relations. While these two activities have not always been in balance, the great strength of empirical demand analysis has been the existence of strong theoretical foundations which could be drawn upon or modified as practice demanded. This interplay between the theory and reality has been perhaps more fruitful in this than in any other branch of economics.

The Definition and Impact of College Quality

Abstract: In this paper we are concerned with the characteristics of colleges which serve to increase subsequent monetary incomes of those who attend. Usually, lifetime earnings are explained by variables such as innate ability, experience in the labor force and years of education, although other socio-economic, demographic and occupational data can be inserted to increase the explanatory power of the model. This paper attempts to add a new dimension to the earnings function analysis by hypothesizing the features of colleges which might yield financial payoffs later in life, and then testing to see which of these traits actually do add most to the explanatory power of the traditional earnings function.

On the pricing of corporate debt: the risk structure of interest rates

Abstract: Presented at the American Finance Association Meeting, New York, December 1973.(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Response-induced reversals of preference in gambling: An extended replication in las vegas

Abstract: The present report describes an expanded replication of the previous experiments in a nonlaboratory real-play setting unique to the experimental literature on decision processes - a casino in downtown Las Vegas.