Knowledge that Transforms

Serena Ng, Huntley Schaller, The Risky Spread, Investment, and Monetary Policy Transmission: Evidence on the Role of Asymmetric Information, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 78, No. 3 (Aug., 1996), pp. 375-383

The literature which examines the impact of school spending on students' subsequent earnings is bifurcated into state-level studies, which typically find strong effects, and school-level studies,which find little effect. Since most of the school-level studies examine young workers, one explanation for the discrepancy is that school inputs benefit workers only as they gain job experience. The paper tests the hypothesis by using both school-level (NLSY) and state-level data sources (Census and the Biennial Survey of Education). Both data-sets suggest that there is typically no significant age dependence. Thus other explanations of the discrepancy are likely to explain the differing results. JEL Codes: I21, I24 1 1. Introduction Education is arguably one of the best long term public investments available to a society. It is widely accepted that the private returns to an additional year of education are quite high, and that the social returns are also high. Such beliefs form the basis ...

John Mutti, Bernard Yeung, Section 337 and the Protection of Intellectual Property in the United States: The Complainants and the Impact, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 78, No. 3 (Aug., 1996), pp. 510-520

This paper estimates the costs of a government mandate to use natural gas vehicles, focusing on the less desirable attributes that these vehicles 9 possess. A model of producer and consumer behavior in a market for a differentiated product is constructed; a hedonic price function is estimated; and consumer surplus losses from the substitution of natural gas cars for gasoline cars are calculated. These losses are found to be significant: the average per car consumer surplus loss ranges from $1100 to $3200, with 20% to nearly 50% of the loss due to changes in vehicle characteristics. The costs of such a policy appear to be greater than the environmental benefits but may not be too far out of line with the costs of alternative approaches for reducing vehicular pollution. Copyright 1996 by MIT Press.

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Richard H. Clarida, Consumption, Import Prices, and the Demand for Imported Consumer Durables: A Structural Econometric Investigation, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 78, No. 3 (Aug., 1996), pp. 369-374

The authors decompose annual earnings into hours of work and hourly earnings and analyze male-female differences in earnings inequality using Canadian data. Their results indicate that the larger female inequality in earnings is due to a greater inequality in the distribution of hours of work. The distributions of wages for men and women are either statistically indistinguishable or more equal for women. The authors compare two data points, 1988 and 1981, and find the same structure in the gender comparisons. Also, changes between 1988 and 1981 in earnings inequality are generated from movements in the hours distributions. Copyright 1996 by MIT Press.

This paper examines the relationship between organizational structure and operation and outage durations at nuclear power plants in the United States. It empirically examines Aoki's (1990) proposition that (1) hierarchical control increases productivity in situations that are very stable or very uncertain and (2) horizontal coordination increases productivity in intermediate situations. It describes a model of continuous production in which management chooses an organizational structure that minimizes the ratio of the hazard rates for operation and outage. And proposes an index of hierarchy based on measures of plant-level organization. Parameter estimates support the proposition that less hierarchy is associated with higher productivity through longer periods of operation. Copyright 1996 by MIT Press.

The estimation of censored probit models can result in an estimated correlation between the disturbances approaching [plus]1.0 or -1.0 when most of the observations are selected into the sample and the outcomes are unequally distributed. Outcomes of 0 can induce an estimated correlation of -1.0, and outcomes of 1 can induce an estimated correlation of [plus]1.0. This paper analyzes the population problem, derives corresponding sample conditions, proposes a solution to the problem, and offers a computer program. Copyright 1996 by MIT Press.

Jinook Jeong, G. S. Maddala, Testing the Rationality of Survey Data Using the Weighted Double-Bootstrapped Method of Moments, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 78, No. 2 (May, 1996), pp. 296-302