In this paper we present and estimate an adjustment cost model of industry employment which takes explicit account of both expectations and aggregation over different labour types. The resulting model is subject to a large number of tests and is a highly robust representation of the data. Finally forecasts are produced for manufacturing employment up to 1990

In this paper we link two exchange rate literatures by showing how threats of asset controls yields determinate exchange rates in general equilibrium models with otherwise perfect capital markets and by showing how, for certain sequences of threats, exchange rate determination may be well explained by monetary variables. We find that in general there exists no natural exchange rate, and market rates may be sensitive to changed perceptions about future exchange rate intervention

The paper considers the problem facing a consumer deciding whether to purchase a good whose effect on utility is unknown. The consumer is allowed to learn about the effect over time according to a Bayesian updating procedure. Of interest is the quantity of the good the consumer will purchase in the first period. The paper allows the consumer's budget constraint to be spread over more than one period and consequently generates results which contradicts earlier work

This paper examines spatial equilibrium in political competition when established parties choose their platforms competitively while rationally anticipating entry of a vote-maximizing third party. The resulting equilibrium is substantially different from the Hotelling "median" equilibrium. Established parties are spatially separated and third parties will generally lose the election. This provides one theoretical explanation for the stability of two-party systems. Namely that non-cooperative behavior between established parties can effectively prevent third parties from winning

This paper is an econometric examination of female fertility and labour-supply decisions. Based upon utility-maximizing choice, fertility and labour-supply demand functions are specified and estimated jointly with a wage-accumulation equation. A main contribution of the paper is the demonstration of a maximum-likelihood estimation method which avoids the main selectivity-bias problems in this area

This paper considers the problem of estimating distributed lags in short panels. Though the N time series contained in a panel may allow for relatively precise estimates of identified lag coefficients, identification requires restrictions on the contribution of the unobserved pre-sample x's to the current values of y, and the shortness of panels focuses attention on this matter. We investigate two such restrictions. The first constrains the relationship between the presample and insample x's, while the second constrains the lag distribution itself. An example, which investigates empirically how to construct “capital stocks” for the analysis of rates of return, closes the paper

In the mid-1970s several authors studied models of markets with asymmetric information in which equilibria do not exist. Although those authors focused on models of insurance and education, it was recognized that similar nonexistence problems arise in a wide class of models with asymmetric information. Recently, Dasgupta and Maskin have demonstrated that for a game-theoretic version of at least one of those models, although no equilibria may exist in pure strategies, equilibria exist in mixed strategies. In the present paper we construct a mixed-strategy equilibrium for one member of the class—Spence's signalling model of education. Qualitative features of the equilibrium are explored

This paper analyses a class of iterative planning procedures that can be applied in environments describable by the Leontief-Samuelson technology. Members of the class are distinguished by the extent of the communication of technical information from firms to the Centre. All members of the class are monotonic and convergent, but the speed and finiteness of convergence is shown to depend critically on the extent of the transfer of technical information throughout each procedure. The paper thus establishes a trade-off between the informational and performance properties of a class of resource allocation mechanisms, taking environmental coverage as given

This paper provides a complete characterization of the welfare economics of employment contracts when workers are immobile in the ex post period. Necessary and sufficient conditions for constrained Pareto optimality are derived for economies with incomplete risk markets, two consumption goods and random production technologies in which: (a) workers can/cannot observe realizations of their employers ' revenue function (symmetric vs. asymmetric information), and in which; (b) employment contracts allow/preclude contingent wages and/or employment levels (flexible vs. rigid contracts). This taxonomic approach serves to identify the welfare implications of exogenous and endogenous contractual rigidities, and to isolate a class of externalities that is unique to economies with asymmetric information. The latter market failure is also present with "indexed " contracts when workers alone can observe realizations of their consumption goods prices (another form of asymmetric information). 1

We consider optimal nonuniform pricing schedules, where the price depends upon the amount purchased. Such schedules are regularly used by public utilities and other services. Welfare-optimal nonuniform prices are related to the theory of optimal uniform prices developed by Ramsey. We characterize situations in which upward or downward discontinuities in pricing schedules are optimal. Our results are applicable to a number of related problems, including optimal taxation, insurance, and incentives.