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Domestic Determinants of the Current Account Balance of the United States

Quarterly Journal of Economics 1983 98(3), 401
The U. S. economy is found to be sufficiently open to make the balance on foreign transactions an essential part of the equilibration process between saving and investment. Specifically, over the past two decades, changes in the national saving rate have increasingly been matched by changes in net foreign rather than domestic investment. Thus, it would be counterfactual to assume in policy discussions that measures to raise the national saving rate add fully to the stock of productive capital in the United States, barring only Keynesian complications. Conversely, a stimulus to domestic investment could be validated in part by drawing on foreign saving.

Food Preferences and Nutrition in Rural Bangladesh

The Review of Economics and Statistics 1983 65(1), 105
T HE dietary choice of households near subsistence levels of nutrient intake is one of obvious policy importance. In many countries, such as Bangladesh, national goals are set in terms of nutritional intake and there is heavy intervention in the markets for foods. However, little is known about the manner in which food preferences vary with food expenditure and nutrient intake. The design of efficient programs to aid nutritionally deficient households in attaining minimal levels of nutrient intake requires information on all ownand cross-price elasticities for both target and non-target groups. The net effect of a food price subsidy on the consumption of food nutrients cannot be predicted without knowledge of the complete elasticity matrix. Results presented below demonstrate that substitution effects can be so strong that the subsidization of certain foods quite often reduces nutrient consumption. In this study, demand equations for nine foods which allow for extremely flexible consumer price response are estimated from the individual budgets of 5,750 rural Bangladeshi households. Estimation at the household level is preferred because it more readily permits the incorporation of household composition variables into the demand analysis, such as household size, occupation and employment status, that are typically lost in aggregation. There is also a greater range and variation in expenditure levels than found in grouped data. This is of particular importance in the study of nutritional well-being as it is the poorest households which are of special interest. Moreover, the household sample provides sufficient degrees of freedom to estimate a simple varying parameter model which requires the estimation of 270 parameters. Previous econometric analysis of income-class specific dietary choice has been limited and not altogether satisfactory. Pinstrup-Anderson, de Londono and Hoover (1976) estimated complete sets of price elasticities for different income strata using Frisch's scheme in order to study the impact of changes in relative prices on nutrient consumption. Their results are suspect because of the assumption of want independence necessary for this methodology to be valid. Alderman and Timmer (1980), who were also concerned with studying the relationship between food price policy and nutrient intake by income classes, econometrically estimated separate price coefficients for each income group by including slope dummy variables in their demand equations for rice and cassava in Indonesia. The inclusion of these dummy variables revealed surprisingly large differences in compensated price response across income groups. Although their results support the notion that poorer households respond differently to prices than the rich, the limitations of their data constrained them to consider only two foods and to specify changes in price response which are discontinuous with respect to income. I The formulation and estimation of the food demand equations is discussed in section II below. Section III presents the results of the estimation and discusses the nutritional implications of movements in relative food prices and other exogenous variables. Section IV summarizes our findings.

Efficient Decentralisation with a Transferable Good

Review of Economic Studies 1983 50(2), 375
There are many situations where agents supply input factors and produce a transferable good (money). This paper examines the conditions on technology under which agents can specify reward schedules which lead to an efficient outcome even if inputs are chosen non-cooperatively and preferences are private information. The characterisation of the class of technologies that allows this involves a generalization of additivity known as (n − 1)-additivity.

Floating Rate Notes and Immunization

Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis 1983 18(3), 365
Recent developments in the literature on bond portfolio management have identified conditions under which uncertainty of the investment return attributable to interest rate changes is eliminated. Such a strategy, called immunization, is achieved when the duration of the bond or portfolio of bonds is equal to the investor's holding period. Duration is defined as a weighted average time to maturity and was originally developed by Macaulay [13]. The condition under which immunization is obtained by setting duration equal to holding period was derived by Redington [14] and Fisher and Weil [10] and further developed by Bierwag and Kaufman [4], Bierwag [2], and Khang [12]. Bierwag [3] has provided a concise summary of the theory of immunization, and Bierwag and Khang [7] show that immunization is equivalent to selecting a strategy in which the worst possible return is maximized, i.e., a minimax strategy. Bierwag [1] examines immunization under multiple shocks to the term structure and Bierwag, Kaufman, and Toevs [6] extend the concept to a general equilibrium, two-state Arrow-Debreu world.

A Theoretical Derivation of the Functional Form of Short Run Money Holdings

Review of Economic Studies 1983 50(3), 531
This paper considers the short run adjustment of money holdings towards their desired levels. A rationale for short run money holdings is given, which allows for uncertainty in cash flows, and it is shown how the adjustment to desired money balances will occur following a change in some of the economic variables. The model generates a particular form for the short run demand for money function, which is shown to be econometrically superior to the standard ad hoc formulation. The chief theoretical novelty is the derivation of the appropriate transient probability density of money holdings.

Antitakeover charter amendments and stockholder wealth

Journal of Financial Economics 1983 11(1-4), 329-359
Many large corporations have recently adopted antitakeover charter amendments which make the transfer of corporate control more difficult. This paper develops and tests competing theoretical explanations for the passage of these amendments. In one view, antitakeover provisions are adopted because incumbent management seeks job protection at stockholders' expense. The alternative hypothesis is that antitakeover provisions benefit stockholders, perhaps by extracting greater payment in exchange for corporate control. Although inconclusive, the evidence provides weak preliminary support for the hypothesis that antitakeover amendments are best explained as a device for managerial entrenchment.

Financial Structure and Economic Activity

American Economic Review 1983
A recent development in economic science is the attempt to integrate monetary theory with the theory of general economic equilibrium. This work takes as its starting point the idea that money cannot have value in standard, general equilibrium models. In these, too much trade can be accomplished in centralized markets (see Robert Clower, 1969, 1971; Frank Hahn, 1973; or Neil Wallace, 1980). Thus, to decentralize or break up the structure, either exchange must be made costly or there must be restrictions on who can trade with whom, and thus such choicetheoretic models offer the intriguing possibility that real and monetary phenomena can be understood as intimately related. This paper continues in the relatively brief, choice-theoretic tradition, motivated by real and monetary phenomena associated economic development and growth: 1) To be noted first is Simon Kuznets' seminal work on national income (1971). In a cross-section study of fifty-seven countries in 1958, Kuznets shows that the share of the agricultural sector, including forestry, fishing, and hunting, in Gross Domestic Product is inversely correlated with Gross Domestic Product per capita. The share of the industrial sector, including transportation and communication, is closely and positively associated with per capita product. The share of the service sector tends to be positively but weakly associated with per capita product, but the share of banking, insurance, and real estate shows a striking rise as one shifts from lowto higher-income countries. Moreover, the evidence suggests that the ratio of industrial prices to agricultural prices is perhaps lower the higher is per capita income, though the evidence on relative prices for the service sector is inconsistent. Turning to long time-series for thirteen developed and four less developed countries, Kuznets finds dramatic evidence for a decline of the agricultural sector and a rise in the industrial sector with per capita income, at least in developed countries. Again, results for the service sector are mixed, but Canada, France, and the United States are positive exceptions. The share of a transport-communication subsector rises quite consistently. Turning next to shares of sectors in the labor force, Kuznets finds, both on a cross-sectional and secular basis, that all the above movements are at least mirrored and in many cases amplified. In particular, both components of the share of the service sector, services and commerce, rise substantially with Gross Domestic Product per capita. 2) To be noted second is the extensive work of Raymond Goldsmith on financial structure and financial intermediation. For the United States, Goldsmith (1958) finds that the activity of intermediaries, as measured by their share in national assets, in tangible assets, and in all claims, has shown a substantial rise from 1860 to 1952. Similarly, Goldsmith (1969) finds that the ratio of financial institutions' assets to Gross National Product rises substantially from 1860 to 1963 in both developed and less developed countries, including Switzerland, Great Britain, the United States, Japan, Argentina, and India. Related, the number of households with savings accounts, the number with life insurance policies, and the number with stock ownership expressed as percents of the population are all low for less developed countries relative to developed countries, and *Professor of Economics, Carnegie-Mellon University, Graduate School of Industrial Administration, Schenley Park, Pittsburgh, PA 15213. This paper was motivated by a conversation with Thomas Sargent and has been aided by helpful comments from Robert Barro, Robert E. Lucas, Jr., Dan Peled, Kenneth Singleton, and Neil Wallace. Financial support from the National Science Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the Peterkin Symposium on Foundations of Monetary Policy and Government Finance at Rice University, and research assistance from Pramerudee Townsend are all gratefully acknowledged. I alone assume full responsibility for any errors and for the views expressed here.