Knowledge that Transforms

Recent articles have shown that contracts can support the efficient outcome for bilateral trade, even in the face of specific investments and incomplete contracting. These studies typically considered “selfish” investments that benefit the investor (e.g., the seller's investment reduces her production costs). We find very different results for “cooperative” investments that directly benefit the investor's partner (e.g., the seller's investment improves the buyer's value of the good). Most importantly, if committing not to renegotiate the contract is impossible, then contracting has no value, i.e., the parties cannot do better than to abandon contracting altogether in favor of ex post negotiation.

We analyze an economy that lacks a strong legal-political institutional infrastructure and is populated by multiple powerful groups. Powerful groups dynamically interact via a fiscal process that effectively allows open access to the aggregate capital stock. In equilibrium, this leads to slow economic growth and a “voracity effect,” by which a shock, such as a terms of trade windfall, perversely generates a more-than-proportionate increase in fiscal redistribution and reduces growth. We also show that a dilution in the concentration of power leads to faster growth and a less procyclical response to shocks.

This paper considers conceptual and practical issues that arise in measuring labor's share of national income. Most importantly: How are workers defined? How is compensation defined? The current definition of labor compensation used the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) includes the salary of business owners and payments to retired workers in labor compensation. An alternative series to the BEA's standard series is presented. In addition, a simple method for decomposing labor compensation into a component due to raw labor' and a component due to human capital is presented. Raw labor's share of national income is estimated using Census and CPS data. The share of national income attributable to raw labor increased from 9.6 percent to 13 percent between 1939 and 1959, remained at 12-13 percent between 1959 and 1979, and fell to 5 percent by 1996.

The Myth of the East Asian Miracle: The Macroeconomic Implications of Soft Budgets by Chong-En Bai and Yijiang Wang. Published in volume 89, issue 2, pages 432-437 of American Economic Review, May 1999

How should we assess the changing economic status of workers and families in the United States? The answer is obvious to many, including outstanding economists who decry the meager wage growth and rising wage and income inequality in the United States since 1979 (Paul Krugman, 1992; Richard Freeman, 1996/1997; James Tobin, 1996/1997 ) . According to Freeman (1996/1997) the following ‘‘facts are not in dispute’’:

The fundamental importance of economic institutions for economic growth through their impact on technological change has long been argued by Joseph Schumpter and others. Recent empirical studies have reconfirmed such arguments. Robert Barro (1997) finds that economic and political institutions are the most important factors in explaining differences in growth across economies. New growth theory has made major breakthroughs in endogenizing technological changes. However, although some insightful and inspiring discussions of institutional impacts of innovation are provided, there is little attempt in these models to explain what, aside from capital, labor inputs, and knowledge accumulation, determines innovation. An attempt is made to fill the gap in literature by examining how financial institutions affect technological innovation and thus affect growth.

We propose a unified theoretical framework within which to interpret and evaluate the foundational principles of GATT. Working within a general equilibrium trade model, we represent government preferences in a way that is consistent with national income maximization but also allows for the possibility of distributional concerns as emphasized in leading political-economy models. Using this general framework, we establish that GATT's principles of reciprocity and non-discrimination can be viewed as simple rules that assist governments in their effort to implement efficient trade agreements. From this perspective, we argue that preferential agreements undermine GATT's ability to deliver efficient multilateral outcomes.

Cracks in the Glass Ceiling: Gender and Promotion in the Economics Profession by John M. McDowell, Larry D. Singell and James P. Ziliak. Published in volume 89, issue 2, pages 392-396 of American Economic Review, May 1999

We document strong positive correlation between changes in institutional ownership and returns measured over the same period. The result suggests that either institutional investors positive‐feedback trade more than individual investors or institutional herding impacts prices more than herding by individual investors. We find evidence that both factors play a role in explaining the relation. We find no evidence, however, of return mean‐reversion in the year following large changes in institutional ownership—stocks institutional investors purchase subsequently outperform those they sell. Moreover, institutional herding is positively correlated with lag returns and appears to be related to stock return momentum.

We analyze the trading activity of the mutual fund industry from 1975 through 1994 to determine whether funds “herd” when they trade stocks and to investigate the impact of herding on stock prices. Although we find little herding by mutual funds in the average stock, we find much higher levels in trades of small stocks and in trading by growth‐oriented funds. Stocks that herds buy outperform stocks that they sell by 4 percent during the following six months; this return difference is much more pronounced among small stocks. Our results are consistent with mutual fund herding speeding the price‐adjustment process.