Knowledge that Transforms

Using data from a sample of the economic literature published over the years 1950 through 1988, we find substantial support for an environmental theory of idea entrepreneurship among economists. In particular, we show that the percentage of economic articles devoted to the topics of inflation and employment are related directly to the actual inflation and unemployment rates in the economy and indirectly to the growth rate of aggregate real income. Moreover, we are able to provide evidence of undirectional causality running from changes in the economic environment to changes in the composition of the economic literature. Copyright 1990 by MIT Press.

The labor and entrepreneurial components of reported physician net income are separated in an analysis of input and output market performance. A wage equation, corrected for selectivity bias, is estimated for employee physicians and the results indicate that the performance of the labor market for primary care physicians is consistent with competitive theory. The parameters are used to predict opportunity wage rates for self-employed physicians. Differences between net income per hour and the predictions indicate that 16 percent of net income from practice is attributable to entrepreneurship. Evidence of negative selectivity into employee status is also found. Copyright 1990 by MIT Press.

Robert J. Rossana, Interrelated Demands for Buffer Stocks and Productive Inputs: Estimates for Two-Digit Manufacturing Industries, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 72, No. 1 (Feb., 1990), pp. 19-29

The nature and characteristics of economic fluctuations in Eastern European Centrally Planned Economies are analyzed. When cycles are identified by the deviation from a fitted deterministic trend, they are seen to coincide temporally. This common variation is found for Net Material Product (NMP) and Investment. The implications of the common variation of CPE cycles are discussed. Possible explanations of this phenomenon are discussed with emphasis on a possible link via trade. We then examine the possibility that the time series contain unit roots. We are unable to reject this hypothesis for the variables in question. This suggests using procedures for detrending nonstationary time series suggested by Beveridge and Nelson. Such an analysis is performed and the implications are discussed. We find that there remains some common variation in the cyclical component of output, but to a lesser extent. The implications of these findings for future research on CPE cycles are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to construct a leading index for the United States by deriving a set of weights based on Kalman filters. The weights have certain optimality properties and are related to the existing weighting methods of A. F. Burns and W. C. Mitchell (1946), S. H. Hymans (1973), and A. J. Auerbach (1982). The Kalman filter leading index is compared with the CIBCR leading composite index and an index suggested by Auerbach by subjecting all indexes to a number of tests. The results of the tests are mixed, but suggest that the use of Kalman filters as a way of constructing leading indexes is encouraging. Copyright 1990 by MIT Press.

This paper develops a structural model of the market for corporate borrowing in the United Kingdom. The authors allow trade to be dispersed across a number of submarkets and suppose that disequilibrium operates at this disaggregated level. Solving for the level of aggregate trade, they can estimate nonlinear equations for the demand and supply of borrowing and for the associated interest rate. The authors use survey data to measure the strength of spillover from other markets. The estimates reveal that disequilibrium has had substantial effects. The authors also obtain interesting and plausible estimates for the parameters of the behavioral equations. Copyright 1990 by MIT Press.

This paper tests for the existence of discrimination in consumer lending by finance companies in Texas before the passage of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act. The data used permit conclusions about discrimination in the market, not just in the behavior of a small number of creditors. The tests suggest that lenders did not discriminate against factors now protected by ECOA. These companies may have discriminated against single borrowers of both sexes and against widows but not married women or divorced borrowers. The results support the view that consumer credit markets as a whole were not characterized by widespread systematic discrimination. Copyright 1990 by MIT Press.

M. Daniel Westbrook, Patricia A. Buckley, Flexible Functional Forms and Regularity: Assessing the Competitive Relationship between Truck and Rail Transportation, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 72, No. 4 (Nov., 1990), pp. 623-630

Unlike previous studies on the demand for local public education, this paper applies a minimum likelihood technique, developed for a kinked budget constraint, to the case of Wisconsin school districts and carries out simulations. The results indicate that (1) the bias in estimation under standard econometric techniques is substantial, (2) the so-called flypaper effect indeed exists, and (3) the impacts of grants on expenditures and wealth neutrality are different from those obtained by previous studies. Copyright 1990 by MIT Press.

Additional empirical evidence is provided concerning the impact of government financing decisions on monetary expansion in the United States for the post-World War II period. The budget position of the fiscal authority and the rate of money growth set by the Fed are specified as endogenous variables within a system of equations. The empirical analysis generates evidence of a policy shift in the 1980s, with budget deficits exerting no independent influence on high-powered money growth prior to 1981 while, after 1981, such a linkage is found to exist. Copyright 1990 by MIT Press.