Knowledge that Transforms

Using a unique micro data set, we find pervasive evidence of price asymmetry that is systematically related to inflation. An ordered probit model of pricing by manufacturing, building and merchandising firms shows that inflation: (i) increases the probability of a price increase in response to cost increases and (ii) decreases the probability of a price decrease in response to decreases in demand. Predicted inflation-induced asymmetries also show up for price responses to cost decreases and demand increases but not as overwhelmingly. Similar asymmetries are evident in firm's expectations of price changes, with a slight optimistic bias relative to actual changes.

We study cost pass-through in the U.S. automobile market using a framework that incorporates the effects of cost changes on input decisions. We find that accounting for firms' factor-market decisions significantly increases measured cost pass-through, although we reject the hypothesis of full cost pass-through and constant markups. In addition, our evidence suggests that cost shocks common to all manufacturers have a greater effect on prices than do model-specific cost shocks. Finally, we examine how pass-through varies with manufacturer nationality, finding that U.S. firm cost pass-through exceeds that of European and Asian firms.

From bidding data, we estimate the underlying value distribution for Forest Service timber. We find that bidder values decrease $2/mbf (thousand board feet) with each mile from the tract and that small firms (fewer than 500 employees) have values that are $72/mbf lower than large firms. The empirical value distribution is used to simulate various hypothetical scenarios designed to inform public policy. The most anticompetitive mergers raise price by less than 3%, and a 4% decline in marginal costs through greater merger efficiencies is enough to offset a 1% anticompetitive price increase. Eliminating the SBA set-aside program would raise timber revenues by 15%. A policy of granting bidding preferences to small and more-distant bidders would raise revenue by approximately one-tenth of one percent.

California's longstanding requirement that most women receive time-and-a-half pay for workhours beyond eight in one day was extended to men in 1980. Analyzing Current Population Survey data from 1973, 1985, and 1991, we find that this overtime penalty substantially reduced the amount of daily overtime worked by California men relative to men in other states. Comparisons that use women to control for California-specific shocks show even stronger effects. The estimates imply a price elasticity of demand for overtime hours of at least 20.5.

A basic relationship of the standard general equilibrium trade model relating product-price changes to factor-price changes is used—together with other economic relationships based on this model—to investigate empirically the importance of changes in trade, technology, and factor endowments in accounting for the shifts in relative wages of less-educated workers compared to more-educated workers from 1967 to 1996. In the early part of the period when wage inequality decreased, the dominant explanatory factor seems to have been a relative increase in the supply of highly educated labor. However, since the late 1970s, none of the three economic forces considered can alone account for the observed changes in relative wages, prices, outputs, net exports, and factor-use ratios. In particular, both education-biased technical progress that was greater in industries that intensively used more-educated labor and increased import competition in industries that intensively used less-educated labor seem to have played important roles in bringing about the increase in wage inequality during the 1980s and 1990s.

Current sales of most consumer durable goods are accounted for by replacements. However, only in recent years has the economic literature provided a more rigorous analysis of replacement purchases by incorporating elements of dynamic programming and of the theory of stochastic processes. This paper is an empirical study of household replacement decisions modeled as an optimal stopping rule. Using data from the Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS) of the U.S. Department of Energy, we conclude that demographic variables, operation and replacement costs, and equipment characteristics may affect ownership spells of appliances such as electric heaters and central air conditioners.

The paper investigates the effect of the time-to-build technology on investment dynamics. It explains the positive autocorrelation of investment by showing that investment is serially correlated once the time-to-build technology is taken into account. The paper also shows that the time-to-build technology can explain a substantial portion of the variation in aggregate investment data. Using estimated marginal Q, the paper illustrates that investment responds asymmetrically to different levels of Q (a fact in favor of the irreversibility argument).

The prediction that consumption-income ratios should decline as income rises in cross-sectional data is a feature of Friedman's (1957) permanent income hypothesis and other consumption-smoothing models. The theory thus provides a link between longitudinal income data and cross-sectional expenditure data: given measured income variability and a functional relationship between consumption and permanent income, we predict cross-sectional expenditure patterns and compare those predictions to actual values. Our approach cannot explain the actual skewness in consumption-income ratios under even the strictest consumption-smoothing model, which implies that income measurement error or other anomalies are affecting the data.

Many credit card issuers charge “fixed rates” that remain the same for three to five years, while the rest charge “variable rates” that are indexed to market rates. The presence of these two distinct rate types forces prices at firms selling an otherwise identical product to move asynchronously; variable rates move one-for-one with the index, while fixed rates stay constant. Empirical and theoretical analysis shows that this pricing structure provides an explanation for the simultaneous (yet seemingly contradictory) existence of high rate-cost margins and aggressive non-price competition for new customers, a phenomenon that existed in the credit card market in the early 1990s.

This paper investigates the role of managerial preferences in shaping corporate income tax evasion. Using noncompliance with the personal income tax as a measure of taste for evasion, the empirical results from a sample of corporate income tax returns show that managerial preferences play an important role in determining noncompliance with the corporate income tax. Basic sample tabulations show that, when compared to compliant firms, noncompliant firms are three times more likely to be managed by executives who have understated personal taxes. In addition, results from multivariate analyses suggest that the amount of underreported income is significantly higher in the presence of such executives.