Knowledge that Transforms

This paper extends the fundamental theorem of share (or capital) valuation under conditions of certainty and purely competitive markets, to allow for the distinction between capital gains and income in the taxation of personal income. The objective is to develop the theorem for the tax case in a form general enough to allow for corporations both currently and not currently paying a dividend. However, the general derivation is sufficiently tedious to warrant a presentation which begins with less general cases. Accordingly, we will first develop the share valuation equation for a continuous discount version of the taxless case for corporations either paying or not paying a dividend. Then we turn to the effect of income and capital gains taxes for corporations currently paying a dividend; and finally the more general case. The derivations will be simplified by assuming a constant rate of interest over time, but all the theorems can be extended to deal with foreseen changes in interest over time.

Thompson's model preserves the existence of many firms producing the collective good by having all firms act under the Cournot-Bertrand convention and by discriminating in price among consumers. This use of the Cournot assumption is clearly at variance with the prior assumption by Thompson that there is perfect knowledge of all market-relevant information . peculiar results of the Thompson model rely on perfect knowledge by producers of consumers' preferences, and upon perfect knowledge by consumers of the intentions of producers to discriminate in price. But perfect knowledge of all market-relevant information evidently excludes knowledge of the fact, by any producer, that he can have all the revenue of the industry at no additional cost simply by reducing his price (s) slightly. This is simply not compatible with perfect competition as usually understood, and has nothing to do with whether or not consumers have an incentive to compete against each other. A new entrant or an existing firm in Thompson's model who accidentally reduces his price will reap great rewards. This could not happen in a perfectly competitive equilibrium. If any firm in Thompson's model reduces its price, a destructive competitive price reduction spiral will ensue, reducing the price to equality with marginal cost, which is zero. This is what perfect competition is all about, and it is very different from the behavior of Thompson's producers, who do not, in fact, compete. Just as the nongovernment allocation of a good requires barriers to competition, price discrimination requires the same. There is nothing in the inherent nature of a good which provides these barriers. As a result, Thompson has to make special assumptions about the nature of competition to get his result. These assumptions are not consistent with perfect competition. I would have no quarrel with Thompson if he had titled his paper The Production of Collective Goods Under a Very Peculiar Kind of Non-Competitive Polipoly, and had deleted all further references to perfect competition. One might still argue, of course, that the model is then void of either practical or theoretical usefulness. On the practical side, I submit that each of the examples cited by Thompson of the (e.g., nongovernment) allocation of a good is a case in which there is either some barrier to competition, or in which some good has been substituted for the collective good. In broadcasting, for example, stations substitute the private good, audience size, for the public good, programming. They sell the good, not the one. No collective good can be privately and competitively produced. Nongovernmental allocation of such a good requires both exclusion devices and barriers to competition. Efficient allocation may require price discrimination.

to the randomness of profits, rather than to errors in the measurements of K, which would imply a negative bias in p', this too could not explain away the observed negative as, since again one would expect bias /3' in this case too, to be less than one in absolute value. Thus, the observed negative cannot be explained as the consequence of using a bad cost of capital variable and therefore can be taken as an indication of greater capital-schooling (skill) complementarity.4

Phillips [9], Lipsey [6], and others have argued that the partial relationship between the rate of change of money wages and the unemployment rate is convex. The possibility that there may exist other nonlinearities, in the relationship between wage change and its determinants, including interaction effects, has not been examined. This note reports the result of a test of six hypotheses concerning nonlinearities in the determination of the rate of change of money wages. The test gave support to two of the hypotheses: (1) the trade-off between money wage change and the unemployment rate is convex; (2) the unemployment rate and the rate of change of the cost of living interact in their influence on money wage change. The elasticity of money wage rates to the cost of living varies positively with the unemployment rate. The point of departure was Perry's [7] equation for United States manufacturing: 1

I NTERNATIONAL comparison of trade barriers has always been complicated by the problem that the barriers take different, and not easily comparable forms: tariffs, exchange controls, differential sales taxes on domestic and imported products, explicit commodity quotas, implicit or hidden quotas (in the cases of western state trading and all of the trade conducted by the communist nations), and so forth. In 1958 a distinguished panel of experts headed by Gottfried Haberler [4] suggested that the degree of protection can be very roughly judged by the extent to which the price paid to the producer exceeds the world price for importers. . They were well aware of many of the difficulties of this method such as the effect on both domestic and world prices of the goods in question of subsidies given to both exporters and domestic producers. The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe used this technique in 1960 [ 12 ] to study agricultural protection in Western Europe. They also were aware of many of the statistical and methodological pitfalls of this technique and, in particular, called attention to the problems raised by the existence of disequilibrium exchange rates and the levy of tariffs on commodities requiring differential amounts of fabrication in the importer. Several other workers have also found the Gatt approach convenient, e.g., Dardis and Pryor [4, 8]. Pryor, interested in comparing the trade barriers by Eastern and Western Europe, respectively, to the exports of underdeveloped nations as a result of discussions which grew out of UNCTAD I. innovated by adjusting the ratios of domestic to world prices for the fact that the price levels of some nations are biased upward by a relatively large reliance on sales as opposed to income taxation. I point out in this paper two major difficulties with the use of the ratio of domestic to world (or import) price as a proper and unambiguous measure of barrier to imports. The first has to do with problems of defining barrier in view of the several different price ratio-quantity relationships which are possible under differing circumstances and assumptions. Second, the implications for this method of disequilibrium prices and repressed inflation are explored. This is particularly relevant for comparisons involving the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Eastern Europe [7] since the economies of these nations have consistently experienced repressed inflation. However, it is also relevant to comparisons which would have included Western Europe after World War II and some of the underdeveloped nations at present.

HE relationship of finance charges to T terms of consumer installment contracts (such as loan size and maturity) and to regional variables has been well established in the literature [8] [12]. Our study demonstrates the importance of the characteristics of the borrower, particularly his overall wealth position, in determining the cost of credit. Although this study examines the determinants of automobile finance rates, the general results should be applicable to the financing of other consumer durables.

M OST of the problems of measurements of productivity are related in one way or another to problems of aggregation. This statement also covers the measurement of technical change. There are few, if any, conceptual problems in measuring a production process which consists of a single factor and a single product. As soon as more factors or more products are included, complications arise. Some of these are examined in this paper. In the absence of technical change (TC) the main finding is our claim that the well-known concept of index number bias has no empirical validity and is therefore irrelevant in answering some of the questions it has been supposed to answer. In introducing TC, a natural definition of neutral TC (NTC) is suggested so that changes in output can be allocated to NTC, differential TC (DTC), and changes in inputs. It is shown how in general DTC is measured as NTC. An important role in our discussion is played by aggregates derived from the underlying production function. To illustrate the use of such aggregates a multiproduct production function is partly estimated. We start this paper by presenting the empirical production function which serves as illustration in subsequent discussion. In section III we take up the question of index number bias. In section IV we define the two forms of technical change and deal with the effects of NTC and changes in inputs on output. In section V the measurement of DTC is discussed.