In this paper I assess the degree of similarity in the cross-sectional pricing of Internet and non-Internet stocks during the tumultuous year of 2000. Despite large differences in their economic fundamentals, I find that the equity market values of Internet firms with immaterial web traffic, firms that are randomly selected, and firms that went public at the same time as Internet firms are similarly related to analysts' forecasts of earnings in 2001 and the long-term rate of growth in earnings. This is not the case for firms with intensive web traffic. I also find that at the peak of Internet prices in March 2000 the market rewarded losses of web-traffic-intensive firms but did not reward profits, while after the peak the market reversed its view, rewarding profits but not losses. Beyond earnings, web traffic is significantly positively priced both at and after the Internet peak. However, I find no evidence that two proxies for supply and demand forces – the degree of public float and short interest – are value-relevant for Internet firms. Overall, I argue that there are enough similarities in the cross-sectional pricing of Internet and non-Internet firms to make it unlikely that the pricing of Internet stocks during 2000 was entirely irrational. Moreover, any irrationality in the prices of Internet stocks cannot be linked to public float and short interest. JEL classifications: G12, G14, M41.

Immigration increased Israel's population by 12 percent between 1990 and 1994, after emigration restrictions were lifted in an unstable Soviet Union. Following the influx, occupations that employed more immigrants had substantially lower native wage growth and slightly lower native employment growth than others. However, because the immigrants' postmigration occupational distribution was influenced by relative labor market conditions across occupations in Israel, Ordinary Least Squares estimates of the immigrants' impact on those conditions are biased. Instrumental Variables estimation, exploiting information on the immigrants' former occupations abroad, suggests no adverse impact of immigration on native outcomes.

This paper investigates how openness to international goods markets affects pollution concentrations. We develop a theoretical model to divide trade's impact on pollution into scale, technique, and composition effects and then examine this theory using data on sulfur dioxide concentrations. We find international trade creates relatively small changes in pollution concentrations when it alters the composition of national output. Estimates of the trade-induced technique and scale effects imply a net reduction in pollution from these sources. Combining our estimates of all three effects yields a somewhat surprising conclusion: freer trade appears to be good for the environment. (JEL F11, Q25)