The marginal cost of public funds is the direct tax burden plus the marginal welfare cost produced in acquiring the tax revenue. This paper estimates that the marginal cost of public funds for taxes on labor income in the United States ranges from 1.09 to 1.16 per dollar of tax revenue, depending on the progressivity of the change in the tax structure. Thus, government expenditures must be at least 9-16 percent more productive than private expenditures to produce a net welfare gain. In addition, the total welfare cost of income taxes in 1974 is estimated at $19 billion

This paper assesses some economic consequences of financing national health insurance by mandating that employers provide insurance for their employees and dependents. Effects in 1975 are simulated using data from a 1970 health care survey. The findings are as follows: (1) Employer premiums would rise between 5 and 21 billion for plans under congressional consideration. (2) Without offsetting subsidies, these premium increases will cause a transitory increase in unemployment of 0.4-1.4 percentage points. (3) As employer premium payments are shifted to employees, taxable income will fall, leading to additional tax expenditures of 1.3-5.9 billion. (4) Tax expenditure on existing subsidies to health insurance is $6.4 billion

The paper develops an explanation for the emergence of media of exchange through the unconcerted market behavior of individuals. Individuals are assumed to accomplish their ultimate exchanges through trading sequences which minimize the expected time spent searching for complementary trading partners. If individual perceptions of the trading environment are appropriately restricted, then the equilibrium pattern of trade will be some mixture of direct barter and use of a common good as medium of exchange. Although full monetization is always a locally stable exchange pattern, the economy may remain in universal direct barter or partially monetized states

A major conceptual error in the standard BLS and Lebergott unemployment estimates for 1930-43 is reported. Emergency workers (employees of government contracyclical programs such as WPA) were counted as unemployed on a normal-jobs-to-be-created instead of job-seekers unemployment definition. For 1933-41, the corrected unemployment levels are reduced by 2-3.5 million people and the rates by 4-7 percentage points. The corrected data show strong movement toward the natural unemployment rate after 1933 and are very well explained by an anticipations-search model using annual full-time earnings.

This text is an extension of a previous study, covering the period from the 1930s to 1959, published by the present writer in 1965. The results of the earlier study (amended) are included in the final table. Economic progress was violently interrupted by "The Year of the Great Leap Forward" (1958), when, as a result of misinformation about agricultural labor requirements and hysterically falsified statistics, it was claimed that agricultural output was being doubled in 1 year, and that immense transfers of labor to other employments were immediately possible. The result was acute agricultural shortages, indeed famine in 1960-61, and complete disruption of industrial production. Recovery from these disasters took several years. A lesser interruption (to industry but not to agriculture) took place in the "Cultural Revolution" of 1966-67. Those to whom the idea of a labor shortage in China appears paradoxical must be reminded that China has few draft animals and still fewer tractors. To cultivate a country the size of China with hand hoes requires several hundred million workers. Chinese population is probably substantially lower than is generally believed, and almost certainly has not been expanding at the rate of 2 percent per year frequently attributed to it. Famine conditions in the early 1960s caused a considerable reduction in the rate of population growth. Publication of Chinese official statistics virtually ceased in 1959, and sources of information for subsequent years are indirect and complex. The basis of the methods used is the construction of estimates of agricultural output and industrial production index numbers, supplemented by information about employment and wages. Almost all attempts hitherto to state China's (and other developing countries') national product in dollar terms give results considerably too low. The yuan has a high purchasing power over services and over some labor-intensive commodities. For a true comparison all Chinese consumption of food should also be revalued at U.S. retail prices. On this basis Chinese 1971 gross product per head, expressed in U.S. dollars of 1974 purchasing power, was 154 for food, 140 for other private consumption, and 157 for investment and government services, or 451 in all. The long-run rate of increase of real gross product per head of population has been about 2 percent per year, whether we take the 1930s or the early 1950s as our starting point. This rate is a little below the general average for developing countries, and much less than is usually claimed. Inequalities in income distribution in China are also not very different from those prevailing in other countries.