Knowledge that Transforms

Walter J. Mead, Asbjorn Moseidjord, Philip E. Sorensen, Competitive Bidding Under Asymmetrical Information: Behavior and Performance in Gulf of Mexico Drainage Lease Sales, 1959-1969, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 66, No. 3 (Aug., 1984), pp. 505-508

This paper reexamines a much-studied topic, the effects of surface freight regulation. It demonstrates that several studies use invalid methods to estimate the welfare costs of rate regulation, develops a correct procedure, and provides estimates of the welfare effects using data and modal market share relationships estimated by Boyer. The paper also analyzes some implications of the common assumption that the demand for total freight shipments by all modes is perfectly inelastic.

This paper develops an approach to estimating nonhomotheticity and technological bias within the class of nonhomothetic CES production functions. The model is applied to cross-section firm level data covering seven industries in Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, and four Central American countries for the period 1970-74. Positive nonhomotheticity (higher capital intensity for larger plant size given factor price ratios) is found in six industries. Other results are that, once nonhomotheticity is accounted for, technological bias is not predominantly capitalusing, and equality of capital intensity between transnational and domestic firms is pervasive.

Michael L. Wachter, William L. Wascher, Leveling the Peaks and Troughs in the Demographic Cycle: An Application to School Enrollment Rates, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 66, No. 2 (May, 1984), pp. 208-215

Richard M. Adams, Thomas D. Crocker, Richard W. Katz, Assessing the Adequacy of Natural Science Information: A Bayesian Approach, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 66, No. 4 (Nov., 1984), pp. 568-575

A price endogenous numerical general equilibrium model of world trade is used to analyze terms of trade issues in the North-South debate. Seven regions are identified, the U.S., EEC, Japan, Other Developed, OPEC, New Industrialized, and Less Developed Countries. The model is benchmarked to a global 1977 micro consistent data set. In the central case analysis, protectionist trade policies in the North inflict an annual welfare loss on the South of around 30 billion dollars per year with an associated terms of trade deterioration of around 9%. The annual welfare cost to the South from northern trade restrictions is somewhat larger than annual North-South aid flows. Protection in the South, and the potential terms of trade impacts of differential growth, are also analyzed.

This paper presents results of an analysis of the labor supply response of 20-year families in the Denver Income Maintenance Experiment. The results indicate that 20-year husbands and wives do not reduce their labor supply relative to control families while 20-year single female heads of families reduce their labor supply by about the same amount as similar families on the 3and 5-year programs. The results suggest that the limited duration of the 3and 5-year experiments may not have caused major biases in the estimated treatment effects, although the imprecise estimates resulting from the small sample sizes of the 20-year experiment greatly qualify this conclusion.

,_ The Rate of Imitation of a Capital-Embodied Process Innovation, Economica 44 (Feb. 1977), 63-69. Sahal, Devendra, Patterns of Technological Innovation (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1981). Saxonhouse, Gary R., Estimated Parameters as Dependent Variables, American Economic Review 66 (Mar. 1976), 178-183. Theil, Henri, On the Estimation of Relationships Involving Qualitative Variables, American Journal of Sociology 76 (July 1970), 103-154. , Principles of Econometrics (New York: Wiley & Sons, 1971). Walker, David, An Analysis of Financial and Structural Characteristics of Banks with Retail EFT Machines, Working Paper # 79-1, FDIC, 1979.