This paper offers a model of intermediation in the Diamond-Dybvig tradition in which both fiat currency and bank deposits are present. The behavior of the economy's price level, deposit-currency ratio, and money supply is compared across equilibria in which bank runs do and do not occur. It is shown that the behavior of these variables in the presence and absence of runs is consistent with that observed in the United States during the period from 1929 to 1933.

Prior studies have identified systematic and time persistent differences in analysts’ earnings forecast accuracy, but have not explained why the differences exist. Using the I/B/E/S Detail History database, this study finds that forecast accuracy is positively associated with analysts’ experience (a surrogate for analyst ability and skill) and employer size (a surrogate for resources available), and negatively associated with the number of firms and industries followed by the analyst (measures of task complexity). The results suggest that analysts’ characteristics may be useful in predicting differences in forecasting performance, and that market expectations studies may be improved by modeling these characteristics.

Beginning in 1997, the price of concert tickets took off and ticket sales declined. From 1996 to 2003, for example, the average concert price increased by 82%, while the CPI increased by 17%. Explanations for price growth include (1) the possible crowding out of the secondary ticket market, (2) rising superstar effects, (3) Baumols and Bowen's disease, (4) increased concentraion of promoters, and (5) the erosion of complementarities between concerts and album sales because of file sharing and CD copying. The article tentatively concludes that the decline in complementarities is the main cause of the recent surge in concert prices.

In the absence of perfect annuity markets, individual consumers generally undertake precautionary saving to provide resources for their future consumption in the event that they live longer than expected. Kotlikoff, Shoven, and Spivak (in this issue) (hereafter KSS) have provided us with a well-conceived and well-executed study of the effects of various annuity arrangements on individual and aggregate saving in the presence of lifetime uncertainty. Each of these authors has had a long-standing interest in this area, and their current paper reflects their accumulated expertise. Their results indicate that a potentially sizable fraction of U.S. household wealth represents precautionary saving resulting from the absence of perfect annuity market.

This paper studies the historical roots of the relationship between economics and psychology, and places recurring controversies between these disciplines in the context of the relationship between economics and the other human sciences, especially sociology. We focus on the formative years of contemporary economics, the early twentieth century, when psychologists and institutionalist economists attacked the unscientific nature of economics. Economists responded by (mistakenly) renouncing verstehen and claiming adherence to behaviorism, rather than by actually addressing the institutionalist critique. Behaviorist economics declared independence from psychology, and by analogy, from the other human sciences. Our illusion of independence continues to this day.

The Mirrlees Review of taxation in the United Kingdom is a landmark in the analysis of U.K. fiscal policy, and of wide interest to public finance economists around the world. This review concentrates on what we can learn from the Review about the current state of public economics and directions for future research. (JEL E62, H20, H50)