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Consumption Innovations and Income Innovations: The Case of the United Kingdom and Germany

The Review of Economics and Statistics 1986 68(1), 1
The present paper is a time series analysis of the relationship between consumption and income innovations. The empirical findings based on aggregate, seasonally unadjusted quarterly UK and German data suggest that the adjustment of consumption to income innovations is not instantaneous (within a quarter), and that the estimated marginal propensities to consume out of income innovations are too large to be compatible with the predictions of the rational expectations-life cycle model. It is found that the same qualitative results are obtained when the disposable income data for West Germany is disaggregated into labour income, transfer payments and profits (transferred from the business sector to households

Financial Innovation: The Last Twenty Years and the Next

Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis 1986 21(4), 459
The word revolution is entirely appropriate for describing the changes in financial institutions and instruments that have occurred in the past twenty years. The major impulses to successful financial innovations have come from regulations and taxes. The outlook for the future is for a slowing down of the rate of financial innovation, but much growth and improvement are still in prospect

Installed Base and Compatibility: Innovation, Product Preannouncements, and Predation

American Economic Review 1986 76(5), 940-955
A good is often more valuable to any user, the more others use compatible goods. We show that this effect may inhibit innovation. If an installed base exists and transition to a new standard must be gradual, early adopters bear a disproportionate share of transient incompatibility costs. This can cause "excess inertia." The installed base, however, is "stranded" if the new standard is adopted: this may create "excess momentum." These dynamic effects have strategic implications

How to License Intangible Property

Quarterly Journal of Economics 1986 101(3), 567
We examine the optimal licensing strategy of a research lab selling to firms who are product market competitors. We consider an independent lab as well as a research joint venture. We show that (1) demands are interdependent and hence the standard price mechanism is not the profit-maximizing licensing strategy; (2) the seller's incentives to develop the innovation may be excessive; (3) the seller's incentives to disseminate the innovation typically are too low; (4) larger ventures are less likely to develop the innovation, and more likely to restrict its dissemination in those cases where development occurs; and (5) a downstream firm that is not a member of the research venture is worse off as a result of the innovation

The Canadian--U.S. Exchange Rate: Evidence from a Vector Autoregression

The Review of Economics and Statistics 1986 68(4), 628
A vector autoregression is used to elicit the empirical facts co ncerning exchange rate movements. The author finds (1) the exchange rate, relati ve price levels, and trade balances are closely related;(2) most other lagged v ariables have no perceptible influence in theexchange rate equation; (3) exchan ge rate innovations are negativelycorrelated with innovations in output and pri ces, positively with innovations in the balance of trade, and almost not at all with innovations in money; and (4) impulses in money, trade balances, and govern ment spending are followed by opposing future movements in theexchange rate and the price level. Taken as a whole, the evidence suggests that exchange rate cha nges may be associated with real, rather than monetary, shocks

Adoption of Competing Inventions by United States Steel Producers

The Review of Economics and Statistics 1986 68(3), 415
A hstract-This research investigates innovative behavior in the U.S. steel industry under the assumption that basic oxygen and large electric furnaces are competing technologies. The empirical model of innovation is based on recent theoretical research. The coefficients are estimated by a seemingly unrelated Tobit approach. The research finds innovation is strongly influenced by a demonstration effect. Adoption is also influenced by potential cost savings and technical progress. There is no evidence that large U.S. steel producers modernized more slowly than their smaller rivals. The large electric furnace becomes sufficiently attractive by 1980 that firms choose not to adopt basic oxygen

Estimating the Personal Distribution of Income with Adjustment for within- Family Variation

Journal of Labor Economics 1986 4(3, Part 2), S216-S239
The 1970 and 1979 Current Population Surveys are used to compute the personal distribution of income. The major innovation in this paper is that all individuals in the household are not treated identically. In particular, children receive a different proportion of income than do adults. That proportion is estimated. Its variations with respect to household characteristics are discussed, and a final distribution of personal income is computed. That distribution has considerably fatter tails than does the one normally used

Implementation Cycles

Journal of Political Economy 1986 94(6), 1163-1190
The paper describes an artificial economy in which firms in different sectors make inventions at different times but innovate simultaneously to take advantage of high aggregate demand. In turn, high demand results from simultaneous innovation in many sectors. The economy exhibits multiple cyclical equilibria, with entrepreneurs' expectations determining which equilibrium obtains. These equilibria are Pareto ranked, and the most profitable equilibrium need not be the most efficient. While an informed stabilization policy can sometimes raise welfare, if large booms are necessary to cover fixed costs of innovation, stabilization policy can stop all technological progress

Implementation Cycles

Journal of Political Economy 1986 94(6), 1163-1190 open access
The paper describes an artificial economy in which firms in different sectors make inventions at different times but innovate simultaneously to take advantage of high aggregate demand. In turn, high demand results from simultaneous innovation in many sectors. The economy exhibits multiple cyclical equilibria, with entrepreneurs' expectations determining which equilibrium obtains. These equilibria are Pareto ranked, and the most profitable equilibrium need not be the most efficient. While an informed stabilization policy can sometimes raise welfare, if large booms are necessary to cover fixed costs of innovation, stabilization policy can stop all technological progress

A Model of Involuntary Unemployment and Wage Rigidity: Worker Incentives and the Threat of Dismissal

Journal of Labor Economics 1986 4(4), 560-581
This paper analyzes a model that highlights imperfect monitoring and the threat of dismissal as microeconomic underpinnings for the efficiency-wage hypothesis. My major innovation is to allow the rules for dismissal as well as the wage to be determined endogenously as the equilibrium of a Stackelberg game played between firms and workers. The key results are as follows. A nontrivial equilibrium (where positive output is produced) must involve involuntary unemployment in that employed workers are strictly better off than are the unemployed. In addition, the equilibrium wage is rigid with respect to exogenous shifts in productivity