Knowledge that Transforms

Sims's finding that nominal money stock is strictly exogenous in a distributed-lag regression of nominal income on nominal money stock is not inconsistent with the appearance and real income and nominal interest rates as strictly exogenous regressors in the quarterly money-demand equations estimated in real form. This strict exogeneity of real income and interest rates in real money-demand equations is due to the restriction implied by estimation in the real form, and these implicit restrictions seem to conflict with the sample information.

Taxation of capital gains at realization may distort individuals' decisions regarding holding or selling during an asset's lifetime. This creates the problem of designing a tax structure for capital gains so as to induce efficient patterns of holding an selling. Several tax structures are explored in this paper. Linear taxation, at rates which rise with the holding period, can achieve the first best, even under the conditions of limited information that we postulate. The form of the optimal tax is independent of the stochastic structure of rates of return. We also derive the optimal nonlinear tax under the constraint that it be independent of the holding period. Second-best tax rules are examined. Results in a two-period model are contrasted with those in a continuous time framework. Also treated is the case in which the returns to the asset under consideration depend on the aggregate quantity invested

According to the Easterlin hypothesis, the positive relationship between income and fertility is dependent on relative income. The hypothesis presumes that aspirations are significantly determined by family background. If income is high relative to aspirations, individuals will tend to have more children. The definition of variables as sibling differences controls family background and yields a measure of relative income. Analyzing the Kalamazoo Brothers sample in this fashion produces no evidence in support of the hypothesis.

This paper studies the transmission of economic fluctuations under flexible and fixed exchange rates. In a model incorporating short-run and long-run Phillips curves, two channels of interdependence are studied: one through the balance of payments and the other through changes in the terms of trade and wage-price spirals. Under fixed rates both channels work; under flexible rates the second channel still works, although the first is blocked. While a recession in one country tends to be transmitted as a recession in the other under fixed rates, it tends to be transmitted as stagflation in the other under flexible rates.

This paper proposes and tests the joint hypothesis that (1) the bond market is efficient and (2) the variation in long-term bond rates is due solely to expectations effects. Under this joint hypothesis, long-term bond rates for any fixed maturity follow (approximately) a martingale sequence. Tests with Canadian data serve not only to support the joint hypothesis but also to cast doubt upon the usefulness of the "preferred habitat" model of Modigliani-Sutch and Modigliani-Shiller as well as several single-equation macro models of interest-rate determination.

This is a review article based on W. O. Henderson's two-volume Life of Friedrich Engels. After a brief biographical summary, Engels's contributions to political economy are examined, and it is suggested that these are much more important than has so far been recognized (e.g., by Schumpeter). In particular, Engels's paper "Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy" announced several of the basic and least invalid themes of Marxist political economy. Later Engels, when criticizing Utopian socialism, contributed a very remarkable account of the essential functions of the competitive price mechanism.

Using a two-sector growth model, this paper examines the incidence of a corporation income tax. While the two-sector static model has provided a fairly precise conclusion as to the incidence of that tax, no such clear conclusion emerges from the growth model. This is because the results are quite sensitive to the precise value of the elasticity of savings with respect to the interest rate. However, one point is clear: Because a tax increase raises the price of investment goods, if savings rates are constant, capitalists must bear a smaller burden than that predicted by the static model.

This paper presents a simple analytical model of optimum pension size and funding practices for a local government. The criterion used is that the attainable frontier of labor-service purchases, for two periods, should be pushed out as far as possible given that there is a fixed endowment of tax revenues in each period. After the characteristics of the frontier are developed, the relationship between optimizing decisions and pension-funding practices is examined. Comparative-static results which may be fruitful for future empirical work are then derived.

A much smaller fraction of professional men live in two-career families than do professional women. The restriction that couples accept jobs in the same geographic location thus weighs more heavily against professional women than against professional men. A probabilistic model of the placement process is developed that predicts the geographic distribution of female professionals that would be observed in the absence of employer discrimination. This distribution is much more than proportionally concentrated in large urban markets. It is concluded that the proportional guidelines employed in the Affirmative Action program discriminate against employers located in small labor markets.

Recent changes in campaign finance legislation (passed by a heavily Democratic Congress) are considered within the context of the two competing theories of regulation, the "public-interest" theory and the economic theory of regulation. Empirical evidence is presented in support of the economic theory's explanation for these major regulatory changes in the political process. The evidence suggests that these changes were highly beneficial to the Democratic party and that they were instrumental in Jimmy Carter's defeat of Gerald Ford in the 1976 presidential election.