Journal Article Accounts of the First Bank of the United States Get access D. D. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 6, Issue 4, July 1892, Pages 471–474, https://doi.org/10.2307/1882517 Published: 01 July 1892

During 1984–1996, welfare and tax policy were changed to encourage work by single mothers. The Earned Income Tax Credit was expanded, welfare benefits were cut, welfare time limits were added, and welfare cases were terminated. Medicaid for the working poor was expanded, as were training programs and child care. During this same time period there were unprecedented increases in the employment and hours of single mothers. We show that a large share of the increase in work by single mothers can be attributed to the EITC and other tax changes, with smaller shares for welfare benefit cuts, welfare waivers, training programs and child care programs.

I. The state variables: balance sheets and information, 279. — II. The model, 284. — III. Numerical illustrations of monetary control, 290. — IV. Conclusions, 301. — Appendix: Derivation of Figure I, 303.

Scope of the paper, 1. — Historical background, 2. — Experience after World War I: United States, 4; Canada, 6; Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, 8. — Resettlement and rehabilitation in the United States: unemployment, 9; rural distress, 10; the Farm Security Administration projects, 11. — Other FSA opportunities: rehabilitation loans, 16; tenant purchase loans, 16. — The new legislation: Canada, 17; New Zealand, 20; United States, 20. — Limited value of certain provisions of the "G. I. Bill": present owners, 22; prospective tenants, 24; prospective buyers, 24. — The legislative background: United States, 27; Canada, 28. — Need for soldier settlement, 29. — Loan values, 31. — Tenant purchase as an alternative, 33. — Concluding remarks, 34.

If informed voters receive favorable policies, then the invention of a new mass medium may affect government policies since it affects who is informed and who is not. These ideas are developed in a voting model. The model forms the basis for an empirical investigation of a major New Deal relief program implemented in the middle of the expansion period of the radio. The main empirical finding is that US counties with many radio listeners received more relief funds. More funds were allocated to poor counties with high unemployment, but controlling for these and other variables, the effects of the radio are large and highly significant. If other government funds were distributed in a similar fashion, then the introduction of the radio led to a major shift in government policies.

I examine the "fiscal theory of the price level" according to which "non-Ricardian" policy and predetermined nominal government debt fiscally determine prices. I argue that the non-Ricardian policy assumption and, by implication, fiscal price level determination are inconsistent with an equilibrium in which all asset holdings reflect optimal household choices. In such an equilibrium, policy must be Ricardian even if, in some states of nature, the government defaults or commits to an arbitrary real primary surplus sequence. I propose an alternative to the fiscal theory of the price level, based on nominal flows instead of nominal stocks. While this alternative framework establishes a consistent link between fiscal policy and the price level, it does not introduce inflationary fiscal effects beyond those suggested by Sargent and Wallace.

Psychological experiments demonstrate that repeated pairings of a cue and a consumption good eventually create cue-based complementarities: the presence of the cue raises the marginal utility derived from consumption. In this paper, such dynamic preferences are embedded in a rational choice model. Behavior that arises from this model is characterized by endogenous cue sensitivities, costly cue-management, commitment, and cue-based spikes in impatience. The model is used to understand addictive/habit-forming behaviors and marketing. The model explains why preferences change rapidly from moment to moment, why temptations should sometimes be avoided, and how firms package and position goods.

Controlling for labor productivity, income levels, and other possible determinants, there is a robust and statistically significant association between the extent of democracy and the level of manufacturing wages in a country. The association exists both across countries and over time within countries. The coefficient estimates suggest that nonnegligible wage improvements result from the enhancement of democratic institutions: average wages in a country like Mexico would be expected to increase by 10 to 40 percent if Mexico were to attain a level of democracy comparable to that prevailing in the United States. Political competition and participation seem to be the driving force behind the result.

A high proportion of skilled workers in the labor force implies a large market size for skill-complementary technologies, and encourages faster upgrading of the productivity of skilled workers. As a result, an increase in the supply of skills reduces the skill premium in the short run, but then it induces skill-biased technical change and increases the skill premium, possibly even above its initial value. This theory suggests that the rapid increase in the proportion of college graduates in the United States labor force in the 1970s may have been a causal factor in both the decline in the college premium during the 1970s and the large increase in inequality during the 1980s.

Journal Article A New Assessment of Openness and Inflation: Reply Get access David Romer David Romer University of California, Berkeley Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 113, Issue 2, May 1998, Pages 649–652, https://doi.org/10.1162/003355398555612 Published: 01 May 1998