Knowledge that Transforms

This paper defines and estimates general equilibrium treatment effects. The conventional approach in the literature on treatment effects ignores interactions among individuals induced by the policy interventions being studied. Focusing on the impact of tuition policy, and using estimates from our dynamic overlapping generations general equilibrium model of capital and human capital formation, we find that general equilibrium impacts of tuition on college enrollment are an order of magnitude smaller than those reported in the literature on microeconomic treatment effects. The assumptions used to justify the LATE parameter in a partial equilibrium setting do not hold in a general equilibrium setting. Policy changes induce two way flows. We extend the LATE concept to a general equilibrium setting. We present a more comprehensive evaluation to program evaluation by considering both the tax and benefit consequences of the program being evaluated and placing the analysis in a market setting.

The debate concerning the effects of payas-you-go (PAYG), defined-benefits, social security systems on the real economy has focused on private savings (Robert J. Barro, 1978; Martin Feldstein, 1997). We expand the inquiry to neglected effects on economic growth and underlying family choices. Our inquiry is based on Ehrlich and Francis T. Lui's (1998) model of the relationships among social security, the family, and endogenous growth.

Lives Saved or Lives Lost? The Effects of Concealed-Handgun Laws on Crime Author(s): Hashem Dezhbakhsh and Paul H. Rubin Source: The American Economic Review, Vol. 88, No. 2, Papers and Proceedings of the Hundred and Tenth Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association (May, 1998), pp. 468-474 Published by: American Economic Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/116969 Accessed: 05/09/2008 17:45

This article studies how equity ownership and corporate control were separated in the United States. Initially, railroads and industrial firms were tightly controlled by a few shareholders; this situation was altered in the 1890s by massive mergers and reorganizations, which allowed private banks to control railroads and industrial firms. Between 1912 and 1939, bank control faded away as a result of a political reaction against financial institutions. Using stock-market data from 1914, the author shows that the eviction of banks from corporate boards depressed firm values by about 7 percent and that part of this value came from cartelization.

Nobel Lecture to the memory of Alfred Nobel, December 9, 1997. (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)