Knowledge that Transforms

William J. Moore, John Raisian, Union-Nonunion Wage Differentials in the Public Administration, Educational, and Private Sectors: 1970-1983, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 69, No. 4 (Nov., 1987), pp. 608-616

Robert A. Margo, Accounting for Racial Differences in School Attendance in the American South, 1900: The Role of Separate-but-Equal, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 69, No. 4 (Nov., 1987), pp. 661-666

Varouj A. Aivazian, Jeffrey L. Callen, M. W. Luke Chan, Dean C. Mountain, Economies of Scale Versus Technological Change in the Natural Gas Transmission Industry, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 69, No. 3 (Aug., 1987), pp. 556-561

This paper provides empirical evidence on the relative impact of the generalized system of preferences, adopted in 1975, and the Caribbean Basin Initiative, adopted in 1983, on the pattern of U.S. imports of manufactured goods from the target areas at the four-digit level in 1984. Imports from Brazil, Mexico, South America, the Caribbean Basin, and all eligible countries are each analyzed. The author provides evidence that existing preferential agreements have failed to offset the bias in U.S. protection against competitive exports from developing countries and explains why one might have predicted such an outcome. Copyright 1987 by MIT Press.

Stephen C. Farber, Robert J. Newman, Accounting for South/Non-South Real Wage Differentials and for Changes in Those Differentials over Time, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 69, No. 2 (May, 1987), pp. 215-223

This paper evaluates calculations of net fiscal incidence, using an applied general equilibrium model of Australia into which public goods are incorporated. Results indicate that it is inappropriate to regard the redistributive impacts of government policies as a zero sum game. For large reductions in public goods provision and taxes, the dominant effect is the foregone consumer surplus from suboptimal public goods provision. In addition, the redistributive pattern of small charges are quite different from large charges. Marginal and average net fiscal incidence, thus, need to be clearly separated, a point not emphasized in existing literature. Copyright 1987 by MIT Press.

The conventional approach to computation of the Allen partial elasticities of substitution (AES) in the framewo rk of the translog production function requires to estimate a set of multivariate input-demand functions. This paper proposes an alternati ve way to compute the AESs, requiring only to estimate elasticities v ia a truncated, single cost-share equation. Value-added separability and pairwise factor substitutabilities have both been validated under the nonlinear restriction. The achievements of the alternative appro ach are by and large consistent with those of the conventional approa ch and with those in some of the existing studies. Copyright 1987 by MIT Press.

, , U.S.-European Interest Rate Linkage: A Time Series Analysis for West Germany, Switzerland, and the United States, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 69, No. 4 (Nov., 1987), pp. 675-684

One of the current questions in the literature on the demand for money is whether the adjustment of actual to desired money holdings is in nominal or real terms.This paper describes a simple procedure than can be used to test the nominal against the real hypothesis.The test is carried out for 27 countries.The paper also tests the structural stability of the demand for money equations and the correctness of the dynamic specification.The results are strongly in favor of the nominal adjustment hypothesis.The estimated equations are quite good in terms of the number of coefficient estimates that are of the right sign and that are significant.The equations also stand up well when tested against a more general dynamic specification.There is, however, some evidence of structural instability before and after 1973, although the instability is generally moderate.The instability does not affect the conclusion that the nominal adjustment hypothesis dominates the real adjustment hypothesis.