A Fast Literature Search Engine based on top-quality journals, by Dr. Mingze Gao.
- Topic classification is ongoing.
- Please kindly let me know [mingze.gao@mq.edu.au] in case of any errors.
Your search
Results 180 resources
-
This paper extends the theory of investment under uncertainty to incorporate fixed costs of investment, a wedge between the purchase price and sale price of capital, and potential irreversibility of investment. In this extended framework, investment is a nondecreasing function of q, the shadow price of installed capital. The optimal rate of investment is in one of three regimes (positive, zero, or negative gross investment), depending on the value of q relative to two critical values. In general, however, the shadow price q is not directly observable, so the authors present two examples relating q to observable variables. Copyright 1994 by American Economic Association.
-
This paper uses a new survey to contrast the wages of genetically identical twins with different schooling levels. Multiple measurements of schooling levels were also collected to assess the effect of reporting error on the estimated economic returns to schooling. The data indicate that omitted ability variables do not bias the estimated return to schooling upward but that measurement error does bias it downward. Adjustment for measurement error indicates that an additional year of schooling increases wages by 12 to 16 percent, a higher estimate of the economic returns to schooling than has been previously found. Copyright 1994 by American Economic Association.
-
The authors examine the impact of looks on earnings using interviewers' ratings of respondents' physical appearance. Plain people earn less than average-looking people, who earn less than the good-looking. The plainness penalty is 5 to 10 percent, slightly larger than the beauty premium. Effects for men are at least as great as for women. Unattractive women have lower labor-force participation rates and marry men with less human capital. Better-looking people sort into occupations where beauty may be more productive but the impact of individuals' looks is mostly independent of occupation, suggesting the existence of pure employer discrimination. Copyright 1994 by American Economic Association.
-
The authors estimate the short-run and life-cycle effects of unplanned children on unwed mothers by comparing unmarried women who first gave birth to twins with unwed mothers who bore singletons. They find large short-term effects of unplanned births on labor-force participation, poverty, and welfare recipiency among unwed mothers but not among married mothers. Although most of the adverse economic effects of unplanned motherhood dissipate over time for whites, there are larger and more persistent negative effects on black unwed mothers. Copyright 1994 by American Economic Association.
-
The authors investigate industry response to cyclical variations in demand. Production units that embody the newest process and product innovations are continuously being created and outdated units are being destroyed. Although outdated units are the most likely to turn unprofitable and be scrapped in a recession, they can be 'insulated' from the fall in demand by a reduction in creation. The structure of adjustment costs plays a determinant role in the responsiveness of those two margins. The calibrated model matches the relative volatilities of the observed manufacturing job creation and destruction series, and their asymmetries over the cycle. Copyright 1994 by American Economic Association.
-
When the patent on a drug expires, there are substantial welfare gains to those consumers who, like the Food and Drug Administration, regard branded and generic versions as perfect substitutes. Standard price indexes fail to reflect this, since they treat generics as distinct new goods and 'link them in' with fixed weights. Alternative calculations are presented using detailed data on the wholesale prices of two anti-infective drugs. Significant differences are found: for one of the drugs studied, the standard price index rose by 14 percent over forty-five months following patent expiration, while the authors' preferred alternative index fell by 48 percent. Copyright 1994 by American Economic Association.
-
The probability that an unskilled worker can be successfully trained or screened to be a manager depends on the effort of the firm. With positive hiring costs, a firm prefers to train/screen its own managers. However, the optimal size of the firm for productive efficiency may conflict with efficient managerial husbandry. How a firm copes with the above constraint generates stochastic layoffs, lateral mobility, promotions, diverse earnings profiles, fast-track jobs, and up-or-out rules. Copyright 1994 by American Economic Association.
-
This paper examines the effects of Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) on private and national saving. The authors construct a formal model of dynamic utility maximization that generates closed-form equations for IRA and other saving. Their empirical estimates indicate that raising the annual IRA contribution limit between 1983 and 1986 would have resulted in little, if any, increase in national saving. Results from sensitivity analysis imply substantially smaller effects on national saving than most previous researchers have estimated. The authors' results are consistent with new evidence they present indicating considerable potential among IRA holders to shift taxable forms of saving into IRAs. Copyright 1994 by American Economic Association.