This paper provides an empirically tractable version of a job-search model. The model is estimated using data on a sample of workers who were laid off when their plants closed. A generalization of the empirical model which allows for reservation wages to change over duration of unemployment is provided and estimated. Reservation wages are found to decline significantly with duration. Applications of the model and the estimates to explain diverse labor market phenomena are provided.

This paper formulates and estimates a model of producer behavior for U.S. manufacturing 1947-71 that simultaneously identifies substitution elasticities, scale economies, and the rate and bias of technical change. A nonhomothetic, nonneutral generalized Box-Cox cost function is employed which takes on the generalized Leontief, generalized square-root quadratic, and translog cost functions as special or limiting cases. Total factor productivity is estimated parametrically rather than being computed as the residual of growth in outputs minus growth in inputs. We find substantial economies of scale and relatively little technological change.

[This paper studies the effects of irreversibility of capital investment upon optimal exploitation policies for renewable resource stocks. It is demonstrated that although the long-term optimal sustained yield is not affected by the assumption of irreversibility (except in extreme cases), the short-term dynamic behavior of an optimal policy may depend significantly upon the assumption. It is suggested that the results may have profound implications for problems of rehabilitation of overexploited fisheries and other renewable resource stocks.]

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the information content of executive earnings forecasts, as measured by changes in trading activity, differed depending on (1) the forecast horizon and (2) the magnitude of the predicted earnings change. The results of the study indicate that the information content of shorter term and longer term forecasts was virtually the same. With respect to the magnitude of the predicted earnings change, the results indicate that predictions of relatively large changes in earnings (greater than 40 percent) were associated with large changes in trading activity. However, no statistically significant relation between predicted earnings change and changes in trading activity was observed.

[In this paper we consider the lognormal, gamma, beta, and Singh-Maddala functions as descriptive models for the distribution of family income for 1960 and 1969 through 1975. Least squares and two efficient estimation techniques are used to estimate the unknown parameters. Alternative functional forms for comparable estimation techniques can then be contrasted and estimation techniques for a given functional form can be compared. We note that estimates of population characteristics depend upon the functional form and estimation technique selected.]

The objective of the paper is to test the hypothesis that the structure of the economy is recursive with disturbances flowing from income to prices, but not back to income. Under this hypothesis, inflation shocks result in corresponding changes in output of the opposite sign. Tests are based on analysis of the vector stochastic process of GNP, the price deflator, and real GNP for the United States from 1954 to 1970. The results are consistent with the recursive structure hypothesis and would seem to reinforce evidence that stock prices and real interest rates vary inversely with inflation.

This paper views the external acquisition of services as a variation of the traditional make-buy problem. A linear programming framework for external acquisition is proposed which generalizes the traditional make-buy model by incorporating the simultaneous equation relationships for reciprocal services. Using linear programming results it is possible to determine whether external acquisitions are economically attractive and in what quantity. In addition, this paper demonstrates how to use the linear programming results to compute cost allocations, even when some overhead services are purchased externally.

Reviews the book "Fundamental Accounting Principles," by William W. Pyle, John Arch White and Kermit D. Larson.