Implicit markets capture compensation for intraurban and interregional differe nces in amenities and yield differences in housing prices and wages. These pecuniary differences become preference-based weights in a qual ity-of-life index. Hedonic equations are estimated using microdata fr om the 1980 Census and assembled county-based amenity data on climati c, environmental, and urban conditions. Ranking of 253 urban counties reveals substantial variation within, as well as among, the 185 urba n areas. The quality-of-life differences across counties within one S MSA is almost one-half of the difference between the top- and bottom- ranked counties in the nation. Copyright 1988 by American Economic Association.

Implicit markets capture compensation for intraurban and interregional differences in amenities and yield differences in housing prices and wages. These pecuniary differences become preference-based weights in a quality of life index. Hedonic equations are estimated using micro data from the 1980 Census and assembled county-based amenity data on climatic, environmental, and urban conditions. Ranking of 253 urban counties reveals substantial variation within and among urban areas.

HD28 .M414 no.2062-88,

This paper examines the effects of restrictions on international financial markets in a general-equilibrium, rational-expectations model of a two-country world. Taxes or quantitative controls on purchases of foreign currency and on the income from foreign assets reduce international trade in goods, lower ex post welfare in the country in which they are imposed, and affect nominal prices and exchange rate.

[Was the Depression forecastable? After the Crash, how long should it have taken contemporary forecasters to realize how severe the downturn was going to be? Data assembled by the Harvard and Yale forecasters--together with modern historical data--are subjected to statistical analysis. Neither contemporary forecasters nor modern times-series analysts could have forecast the large declines in output following the Crash.]

Was the Depression forecastable? After the crash, how long should it have taken contempo rary forecasters to realize how severe the downturn was going to be? These questions are addressed by studying the predictions of the Harv ard Economic Service and Yale's Irving Fisher during 1929 and the ear ly 1930s. The data assembled by the Harvard and Yale forecasters, tog ether with modern historical data, are subjected to statistical analy sis to learn whether their verbal pronouncements were consistent with the data. Both the Harvard and Yale forecasters were systematically too optimistic. Yet, nothing in the data suggests that the optimism w as unwarranted. Copyright 1988 by American Economic Association.