Knowledge that Transforms

This paper first considers the implications of biological evolution for economic preferences. It analyzes why utility functions evolved, considers evidence that utility is both hedonic and adaptive, and suggests why such adaptation might have evolved. Time preference and attitudes to risk are treated—in particular, whether the former is exponential and the latter are selfish. Arguments for another form of interdependence—a concern with status—are treated. The paper then considers the evolution of rationality. One hypothesis examined is that human intelligence and longevity were forged by hunter-gatherer economies; another is that intelligence was spurred by competitive social interactions.

This essay provides an up-to-date summary of the findings of the literature on the economics of alliances. We show that the study of the economics of alliances has played a pivotal role in understanding and applying public good analysis to real-world applications. We establish that the manner in which alliances address burden sharing and allocative issues is related to strategic doctrines, weapon technology, perceived threats, and membership composition. Past contributions are evaluated, and areas needing further development are identified. The theoretical and empirical knowledge gained from the study of alliances is shown to be directly applicable to a wide range of international collectives.

This study surveys the literature examining the privatization of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) We review the history of privatization, the theoretical and empirical evidence on the relative performance of state owned and privately owned firms, the types of privatization, if and by how much privatization has improved the performance of former SOEs in non-transition and transition countries, how investors in privatizations have fared, and the impact of privatization on the development of capital markets and corporate governance. In most settings privatization “works” in that the firms become more efficient, more profitable, and financially healthier, and reward investors.

This paper surveys the microfoundations, empirical evidence, and estimation issues underlying the aggregate matching function. There is no consensus yet on microfoundations but one is emerging on estimation. An aggregate, constant returns, Cobb-Douglas matching function with hires as a function of vacancies and unemployment has been successfully estimated for several countries. Recent work has utilized disaggregated data to go beyond aggregate estimates, with many refinements and suggestions for future research. The paper discusses spatial aggregation issues, and implications of on-the-job search and of the timing of stocks and flows for estimated matching functions.

Reviewing The Spatial Economy by Fujita, Krugman, and Venables, this paper argues that the key contribution of the new economic geography is a framework in which standard building blocks of mainstream economics (especially rational decision making and simple general equilibrium models) are used to model the trade-off between dispersal and agglomeration. The approach thus gives a choice-theoretic basis for a “propensity to agglomerate.”

The theory of market signaling and screening is a cornerstone of the new economics of information. The last two and a half decades have not only witnessed a series of remarkable theoretical developments but also a wide range of applications. This essay examines the key theoretical issues and explores their use in three major fields: industrial organization, labor, and finance. Considerable emphasis is placed on attempts to test the theory in each of these fields.

Our paper assesses progress made by the profession in understanding whether and how exchange rate intervention works. We review theory and evidence on official intervention, concentrating primarily on work published in the last decade or so. We conclude that, unlike the profession's consensus of the 1980s, official intervention can be effective, especially as a signal of policy intentions and when publicly announced and concerted. We note an apparent empirical puzzle concerning the secrecy of much intervention and suggest another way for intervention to be effective which has received little attention in the literature, namely by remedying a coordination failure in the foreign exchange market.

This paper examines the role of secondary data-sets in empirical economic research, taking the field of income distribution as a case study. We illustrate problems faced by users of “secondary” statistics, showing how both cross-country comparisons and time-series analysis can depend sensitively on the choice of data. After describing the genealogy of secondary data-sets on income inequality, we consider the main methodological issues and discuss their implications for comparisons of income inequality across OECD countries and over time. The lessons to be drawn for the construction and use of secondary data-sets are summarized at the end of the paper.

School-to-work patterns and issues are discussed for seven economies (France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States). The emphasis is placed on differences across countries in the current labor market position of young people and recent trends therein, along with the institutions that regulate youth education, training, and employment. The power of public policies—including labor market deregulation, labor market programs, vocationalization of education, and apprenticeship—to improve youth outcomes is discussed, drawing on national evaluation literatures. Evidence of extensive policy failure points up the need to develop nationally appropriate institutions to improve school-to-work transitions.

We survey the determinants of earnings and propose a framework for understanding labor market success. We suggest that the advantages of the children of successful parents go considerably beyond the benefits of superior education, the inheritance of wealth, or the genetic inheritance of cognitive ability. We suggest that noncognitive personality variables, such as attitudes towards risk, ability to adapt to new economic conditions, hard work, and the rate of time preference affect both earning and the transmission of economic status across generations.