Knowledge that Transforms

This paper reconsiders the effects of taxation on risky assets, recognizing the importance of variations in asset prices. We show that earlier analyses which assumed that depreciation rates are constant and that the future price of capital goods is known with certainty are very misleading, as guides to the effects of corporate taxes. We then examine the concept of economic depreciation in a risky environment, and show that depreciation allowances, if set ex-ante, should be adjusted to take account of future asset price risk. Some empirical calculations suggest that these adjustments are large, and have important implications for the burdens of, and non-neutralities in, the corporate income tax.

In this paper we analyze the determinants of international movements of physical capital in a model with uncertainty and international trade in goods and securities. In our model, the world allocation of capital is governed, to some extent, by the asset preferences of risk-averse consumer-investors. In a one-good variant in the spirit of the MacDougall model, we find that relative factor abundance, relative labor force size, and relative production riskiness have separate but interrelated influences on the direction of equilibrium capital movements. These same factors remain important in a two-good version with Heckscher-Ohlin production structure. In this case, the direction of physical capital flow is determinate (unlike in a world of certainty) and may hinge on the identity of the factor that is used intensively in the industry with random technology.

A model of a small open economy in which agents trade in local goods markets and an economy-wide asset market is developed. Purchasing-power parity is assumed to hold at the aggregate level. However, because of local deviations from purchasing-power parity, agents possess differential information. Using this framework, it is shown that when the exchange rate is flexible monetary policy can influence the distribution of real output by altering the information content of the exchange rate. However, when monetary policy is committed to fixing the exchange rate (by a feedback rule) the distribution of real output is independent of the particular exchange rate rule chosen. The stability of real output under the two regimes is compared, and it is demonstrated that regardless of the stability of domestic monetary policy a flexible exchange rate regime is superior in this respect. Possible qualifications and extensions of these results are also discussed.

This paper considers the possible theoretical validity of the following "monetarjst hypothesis": that a constant, positive government budget deficit can be maintained permanently and without inflation if it is financed by the issue of bonds rather than money. The question is studied in a discrete-time, perfect-foresight version of the competitive equilibrium model of It is shown that the monetarist hypothesis is invalid if the deficit is defined exclusive of interest payments, but is valid under the conventional definition. It is also shown that the stock of bonds can grow indefinitely at a rate in excess of the rate of output growth, provided that the difference is less than the rate of time preference.

This paper develops a finite-horizon dynamic stochastic model of discrete choice with respect to life-cycle fertility within an environment where infant survival is uncertain. The model yields implications for the number, timing, and spacing of children. A tractable estimation method is developed for the linear constraint-quadratic utility case that is intimately tied to the dynamic optimization problem, and the method is applied to Malaysian household data. Estimation is based on integrating the numerical solution of the dynamic programming model of behavior with a maximum likelihood procedure.

Previous analyses of postwar black/white earnings ratios have found a more rapid rate of increase in the period since 1964 than before. The reason for this acceleration is unresolved. One view is that federal equal-employment activities have increased the relative demand for black labor. An alternative view is that rising relative earnings reflects (1) reductions in relative supply and (2) the "statistical" effect of low earners raising median earnings by withdrawing from the labor market. This study differs from previous work on the subject in two ways. First, the restrictions on the universe from which published median earnings data by race are calculated are discussed explicitly. The restrict ion most commonly addressed in previous work (having positive earnings in the year in question) is found to be less important than an undiscussed restriction (being employed as a wage and salary worker the following March). Second, data on the distribution of earnings are used to determine the effect of labor market dropouts on median earnings, instead of trying to estimate this effect (as well as demand and supply effects) from time series data. This permits comparison of "corrected" and "uncorrected" post-1964 trends. For males, about half of the "uncorrected" trend remains after the relative earnings variable is corrected for labor market withdrawals. For females, between half and four fifths remains.

Commercial policy is often advocated as a useful tool for combating such macroeconomic ills as unemployment and chronic balance of payments deficits. This paper examines the role of expectations in determining the output and employment effects of various commercial policies. In a rational expectations framework in which workers have incomplete information, it is shown that (i) the short-run output and employment effects of commercial policy changes depend crucially on the correlation between real and nominal wages and that (ii) the use of commercial policy as an instrument of short-run stabilization policy cannot be divorced from its long-run effects on real wages, output, and employment.

A two-sector model is used to explore the role of the agricultural sector in the process of industrialization. Our hypothesis is that areas industrialize earlier where the wages for females and children relative to those for adult males are initially low. Furthermore, the lower this relative productivity of females and children in the pre-industrial economy, the proportionately more will their relative wages increase, and the higher will be the ratio of manufactured to agricultural goods. The model is used to interpret the conditions that fostered the rapid industrialization of the American Northeast, but not the South, from 1820 to 1850.

Changes in six-month bill rates over semiannual periods in the 1960s and 1970s are successfully related to expected changes and to surprises. The latter include unanticipated changes in expected inflation, in the growth of industrial production and base money, and in inflation uncertainty. Estimation of the basic equation through the middle of 1983 does not suggest any change in structure. Moreover the equation "explains" 60 percent of the extraordinarily high level of real rates since late 1980, largely owing to an excess of unexpected net increases in anticipated inflation over actual increases.

This paper presents the Mean-Gini (MG) approach to analyze risky prospects and construct optimum portfolios. The method possesses the simplicity of the mean-variance model with the efficiency of stochastic dominance. Hence, Gini's mean difference is superior to the variance for evaluating the variability Of a prospect. The analysis is further extended with the concentration ratio that permits to classify different securities with respect to their relative riskiness. The MG approach is then applied to capital markets and the security valuation theorem is derived as a general relationship between average return and risk. This is further extended to include a degree of risk aversion that can be estimated from capital market data.