Major long-run swings in the U. S. stock market over the past century are broadly consistent with a model driven by changes in current and expected future dividends in which investors must estimate the time-varying long-run dividend growth rate. Such an estimated long-run growth rate resembles a long distributed lag on past dividend growth, and is highly correlated with the level of dividends. Prices therefore respond more than proportionately to long-run movements in dividends. The time-varying component of dividend growth need not be detectable in the dividend data for it to have large effects on stock prices.

This paper uses Current Population Survey data to examine whether workers who use a computer at work earn a higher wage rate than otherwise similar workers who do not use a computer at work. A variety of models are estimated to try to correct for unobserved variables that might be correlated with job-related computer use and earnings. Estimates suggest that workers who use computers on their job earn 10 to 15 percent higher wages. Additionally, the expansion in computer use in the 1980s can account for one-third to one-half of the increase in the rate of return to education.

Both the annual and lifetime marginal costs of redistribution in England, Sweden, and the United States are calculated. The annual marginal cost of redistribution is $2.90 in the United States, $3.53 in England, and $6.77 in Sweden. The lifetime marginal cost of redistribution is $4.46 in the United States and $7.96 in England. The lifetime marginal cost of redistribution in Sweden indicates that additional redistribution reduces the incomes of both the poor and nonpoor. This study also shows that when there is greater income equality, the marginal tax rate at which the incomes of the poor and nonpoor begin to be reduced will be at lower and lower levels. Copyright 1993 by MIT Press.

We examine the proportion of a stock's cumulative price change that occurs in each trade-size category, using transactions data for a sample of NYSE firms. Although the majority of trades are small, most of the cumulative stock-price change is due to medium-size trades. This evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that informed trades are concentrated in the medium-size category, and that price movements are due mainly to informed traders' private information.

We study firms signaling with cash disbursements and show that the choice of a deterministic or a stochastic disbursement depends on a property of the firm’s production function that is analogous to absolute risk aversion for a utility function. With decreasing (increasing) absolute risk aversion, the high-quality firm prefers to distinguish itself from the low-quality firm with a stochastic (deterministic) outlay. We then study in detail two common forms of corporate cash distributions: dividends, a deterministic disbursement, and share repurchases, a stochastic disbursement.

[We study firms signaling with cash disbursements and show that the choice of a deterministic or a stochastic disbursement depends on a property of the firm's production function that is analogous to absolute risk aversion for a utility function. With decreasing (increasing) absolute risk aversion, the high-quality firm prefers to distinguish itself from the low-quality firm with a stochastic (deterministic) outlay. We then study in detail two common forms of corporate cash distributions: dividends, a deterministic disbursement, and share repurchases, a stochastic disbursement.]