Is there too much or too little research and development (R&D)? In this paper we bridge the gap between the recent growth literature and the empirical productivity literature. We derive in a growth model the relationship between the social rate of return to R&D and the coefficient estimates of the empirical literature and show that these estimates represent a lower bound. Furthermore, our analytic framework provides a direct mapping from the rate of return to the degree of underinvestment in research. Conservative estimates suggest that optimal R&D investment is at least two to four times actual investment.

We compare free trade reached through expanding regional trading blocs to free trade accomplished by multilateral negotiation. With sunk costs, the outcomes are different. Trade in an imperfectly competitive good flows disproportionately more between the original members of a regional agreement even after free trade is reached. They secure a higher welfare level from regionalism than from free trade achieved multilaterally; nonmembers, however, reach a lower welfare level. A surprising result is that world welfare during free trade is greater when it is achieved by the regional path. We conclude with some empirical evidence from the European Union that is consistent with the model.

The canonical model of strategic complementarities between individual actions, which exhibits multiple equilibria under perfect information, is extended with heterogeneous agents and imperfect information. Agents observe their own cost of action and the history of the levels of aggregate activity. The distribution of individual characteristics evolves through a random process, and individuals are rational Bayesians. Under plausible conditions, there is a unique equilibrium with phases of high and low activity and random switches. Applications may be found in macroeconomics and revolutions.

Journal Article The Role of Promotion in Inducing Specific Human Capital Acquisition Get access Canice Prendergast Canice Prendergast Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 108, Issue 2, May 1993, Pages 523–534, https://doi.org/10.2307/2118343 Published: 01 May 1993

This paper uses micro data from the Current Population Surveys to document the secular decline in labor market activity among prime age men from 1967 to 1987. Declines in employment occur at all ages but are found to be particularly severe among less-educated and low-wage men. Information on the cross-section wage-employment relationship and on actual wage changes indicates that the initial fall in employment from the late 1960s to the early 1970s is entirely attributable to falling labor supply whereas since the early 1970s, wage changes predict most of the decline in employment for whites and approximately half of the decline for blacks.

This paper views the standard production function in macroeconomics as a reduced form and derives its properties from microfoundations. The shape of this production function is governed by the distribution of ideas. If that distribution is Pareto, then two results obtain: the global production function is Cobb-Douglas, and technical change in the long run is labor-augmenting. Kortum showed that Pareto distributions are necessary if search-based idea models are to exhibit steady-state growth. Here we show that this same assumption delivers the additional results about the shape of the production function and the direction of technical change

The majority of asset-management intermediaries (e.g., mutual funds, hedge funds) are structured on an open-end basis, even though it appears that the open-end form can be a serious impediment to arbitrage. I argue that the equilibrium degree of open-ending in an economy can be excessive from the point of view of investors. When funds compete for investors' dollars, they may engage in a counterproductive race towards the open-end form, even though this form leaves them ill-suited to undertaking certain types of arbitrage trades. One implication of the analysis is that, even absent short-sales constraints or other frictions, economically large mispricings can coexist with rational, competitive arbitrageurs who earn small excess returns.

To investigate how a fixed exchange rate affects monetary policy, this paper classifies countries as pegged or non-pegged and examines whether a pegged country must follow the interest rate changes in the base country. Despite recent research which hints that all countries, not just pegged countries, lack monetary freedom, the evidence shows that pegs follow base country interest rates more than non-pegs. This study uses actual behavior, not declared status, for regime classification; expands the sample including base currencies other than the dollar; examines the impact of capital controls, as well as other control variables; considers the time series properties of the data carefully; and uses cointegration and other levels-relationship analysis to provide additional insights.

Research using U. S. manufacturing data finds that job destruction fluctuates more over time than job creation, but some new data indicate that this behavior is not shared in growing sectors, where job creation varies more. An explanation for this finding based on the interaction between (S,s)-type adjustment and trend employment growth delivers some tight predictions for the relationship between trend growth and the volatility of creation relative to destruction. Although it scores some notable successes, the simple (S,s)-based model augmented with a low-frequency trend cannot fully account for the strength of the empirical relationship between relative gross-flow volatility and trend growth across one-digit industries.

In 1990 Wisconsin began providing vouchers to a small number of low-income students to attend nonsectarian private schools. Controlling for individual fixedeffects, I compare the test scores of students selected to attend a participating private school with those of unsuccessful applicants and other students from the Milwaukee public schools. I find that students in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program had faster math score gains than, but similar reading score gains to, the comparison groups. The results appear robust to data imputations and sample attrition, although these deficiencies of the data should be kept in mind when interpreting the results.