In extractive industries producing a resource that does not quickly wear out, monopoly power has an important effect on the rate of production, and hence on the pattern of prices, over time. In many cases, a monopoly producer of a durable resource will rationally choose a high initial price, and lower that price over time; this contrasts dramatically with the strategy of a competitive extractive industry, which optimally increases price over time at the industry's discount rate, regardless of the durability of the resource. In the cases we study, it is found that a monopoly producer of a durable resource will be more conservation-minded than will a competitive industry, initially producing at a slower rate in order to keep early-period prices high.

Meade demonstrates how, in the absence of futures markets for many commodities, indicative planning can supply economic agents with the requisite information about future market conditions. An incentive scheme designed to encourage agents to relay accurate information to central planners is introduced into Meade's model. It is then shown how the Groves and Loeb voting procedure can be used to determine whether an indicative planning program would be beneficial.

It is widely agreed that unionization affects the rules and procedures governing the employment relation in organized establishments. The effect of these changes on establishment productivity, however, is unclear. This issue is examined using establishment level data from the U. S. cement industry. A positive union effect on the order of 6–8 percent is found in both cross-section and time series data. Although some caution is in order in interpreting the results, the evidence suggests that unionization can lead to productive changes in the operation of the enterprise.

This paper examines the effect of trade unionism on the exit behavior of workers in the context of Hirschman's exit-voice dichotomy. Unionism is expected to reduce quits and permanent separations and raise job tenure by providing a "voice " alternative to exit when workers are dissatisfied with conditions. Empirical evidence supports this contention, showing significantly lower exit for unionists in several large data tapes. It is argued that the grievance system plays a major role in the reduction in exit and that the reduction lowers cost and raises productivity. In the exit-voice model of the social system [Hirschman, 1970, 1976] individuals react to discrepancies between desired and actual social phenomena in one of two ways: by the traditional free market mechanism of "exiting " from undesirable situations; or by directly expressing their discomfort to decision-makers through "voice. " While little attention is paid to the labor market in Hirschman's book [1970], the exit-voice dichotomy provides a potentially fruitful framework for analyzing the major employee institution of capitalist economies—the trade union. From the perspective of the dichotomy, voice is embodied in unionism and the collective bargaining system by which workers elect union leaders to represent them in negotiations with management, while exit consists primarily of quits. A major feature of the model is a predicted tradeoff between the two adjustment mechanisms: when workers have a voice institution for expressing discontent, they should use the exit option less frequently and thus exhibit lower quit rates and longer spells of job tenure with firms. Is unionism associated with lower quit rates and higher job tenure of workers, as predicted by the model? Po what extent can any reduction in quits due to unionism he attributed to union "voice " as opposed to other routes of union effects, notably wage gains? Despite a sizeable literature on labor turnover and on the economic effects of unions, extant empirical evidence provides no clear answer to these questions. The turnover literature has focused on quit rates for aggregated manufacturing industries, which provides only

The mean-variance capital-asset-pricing model forms the basis for much of the theoretical and empirical work in modern financial economics. While this model defines the relevant measure of the risk of a security 0 in a general equilibrium context. the relationship between this measure and the microeconomic variables of a firm has not been studied in the literature. This paper develops a model of the firm under uncer-tainty and derives the relationship between systematic risk and such firm variables as monopoly power, demand elasticity, and the labor-capital ratio. The general con-clusions are surprisingly robust and point to several interesting empirically testable hypotheses. I.