This study investigates the structure/conduct/performance relationship in retail deposit markets. The study explicitly incorporates conduct as the link between structure and performance in local deposit markets. It attempts to determine whether banks typically behave competitively or strategically, and whether their conduct is influenced by market concentration. The empirical investigation is guided by an equilibrium model of a retail deposit market. The model is applied to regression equations for local (MSA) MMDA and three- and six-month CD rates. The empirical results indicate that strategic conduct is the norm in MMDA and in three- and six-month CD markets.

This paper reports an estimate of the frictional unemployment rate in U.S. manufacturing that is derived from a parametric, statistical method for estimating stochastic frontiers. The steady-state, perfect-foresight solution to an estimated employment growth frontier provides a locus of technically efficient (frictional) rates of unemployment. The mean frictional unemployment rate during the sample period is estimated to be 3.7 percent of the manufacturing labor force. This estimate conforms closely to an estimate of 3.5 percent that is derived from manufacturing-sector data presented by David M. Lilien (1980) for roughly the same time period.

Recent confirmation of sheepskin effects in the returns to education for prime age white males has been taken as evidence of screening or signaling in the labor market. The authors report evidence of sheepskin effects among women and minority males, and demonstrate that they are somewhat smaller for lower diploma years, but larger for higher diploma years, than those of white males. These are among the first broad-based results confirming the frequent contention derived from signaling models that minorities have smaller returns to low productivity signals, but larger returns to high productivity signals.

Elizabeth S. Cooperman, Winson B. Lee, James. P. Lesage, Geographical Integration and the Retail CD-Pricing Decisions of Large Depository Institutions, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 73, No. 3 (Aug., 1991), pp. 546-552

The authors investigate the consequences of a permanent unphased increase in the U.S. gross saving rate. They find that "the sacrifice time"--the time that elapses until consumption surpasses the value it would have had under the initial saving rate--is roughly six years and is insensitive to the percentage increase in the saving rate ([Delta sub s]). The percentage gain in output at the end of decade--" the decade gain"--is roughly 26% of [Delta sub s], while the percentage gain in consumption is roughly 8% of [Delta sub s]. The "saving rate return"--the internal rate of return on a permanent increase in the saving rate--is roughly 16% and is insensitive to [Delta sub s].

This paper proposes criteria for classifying time-series forecasts of inflation as weakly, sufficiently, strongly, and strictly rational. Forecasts taken from the ASA-NBER surveys, some well-known one-step-ahead forecasting techniques, and a novel variable length autoregressive moving average model are tested against these criteria. None of the forecasts series meets the criteria for strict rationality nor, even, the less demanding criteria for strong rationality. While agents forecast as best they can, their forecasts are not likely to meet stringent rationality criteria suggested by econometricians.