Economic Inquiry articles from October 1992

Economic Inquiry archives from October 1992

Do we punish high income criminals too heavily?
October 1, 1992... I. INTRODUCTION A large literature exists on the purported "injustice" involved when wealthy criminals face a lower probability of conviction than do the less well-to-do for committing the same crimes.(1) Some critics have pointed to this as...

State abortion legislation as a public good - before and after Roe v. Wade.
October 1, 1992... I. INTRODUCTION Prior to the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, each state could choose whether to restrict the availability of abortions just as it could choose to regulate the availability or total amount of any publicly provided good. In this paper...

The determinants of campaign spending: the role of the government jackpot.
October 1, 1992... A slave has but one master; the ambitious man has as many masters as there are persons whose aid may contribute to the advancement of his fortune. Jean de LaBruyere, Des Ouvrages de L'Esprit I. INTRODUCTION This paper builds a model of...

Enforcing time-inconsistent regulation.
October 1, 1992... I. INTRODUCTION Passage of legislation is merely the beginning of the regulatory task. The successful translation of policy from legislative debate into regulation is not guaranteed. Implementation may be especially problematic for regulations...

Impact of seat belt use on driving behavior.
October 1, 1992... I. INTRODUCTION The National Safety Council estimates that the expected reduction in occupant death rates due to usage of lap seat belts would be 7-8.5 percent (see Peltzman |1975~). In addition, Campbell and Campbell |1988~ estimate that...

The life-cycle labor supply of married women and its implications for household income inequality.
October 1, 1992... I.INTRODUCTION There has been an abundance of papers on female labor supply over the years, but most do not rigorously test the life-cycle model of labor supply, and none focus on the potentially important role of nonlabor income in shaping...

The impact of bad writing in economics.
October 1, 1992... "Bad writing does not get read." --Donald McCloskey(1) "Technical considerations of publications are at least equally as important in judging the worth of scientific information as the end goal of adding to the existing body of scientific...

Writing as a responsibility of science: a reply to Laband and Taylor. (response to article by D. Laband and C. Taylor in this issue, p. 673)
October 1, 1992... It must have been around 1968, in the coffee room of the Social Science Building at Chicago, that Milton Friedman and the late George Stigler had a jovial and public conversation about being economists that made a big impression on me. Milton was...

What's legal and what's not: the regulation of opiates in 1912.
October 1, 1992... This paper develops a model to explain state-level opiate regulation in 1912. The personal choice of whether to engage in mainstream or deviant activity is determined by consumption technology and market prices, and voting determines the legality...

Enforcement costs and the choice of policy instruments for controlling pollution.
October 1, 1992... I. INTRODUCTION When evaluating policy instruments for controlling pollution, analysts generally agree that economic incentives are superior to direct controls in terms of minimizing abatement costs. However, when it comes to minimizing...

Friedman tax cuts vs. Buchanan deficit reduction as the best way of constraining government. (Milton Friedman; James Buchanan)
October 1, 1992... I. INTRODUCTION Both Milton Friedman and James Buchanan believe that the federal government spends more than can be justified on the basis of economic efficiency. Both also agree that the reason for excessive government spending is that the...

An expressive voting theory of strikes.
October 1, 1992... I. INTRODUCTION Economists usually make the realistic assumption that individuals commonly choose to further their material interests: other things equal they will choose the higher-paying job, make the investment with a higher expected return...

Job security and job search in more than one labor market.
October 1, 1992... I. INTRODUCTION A person looking for a new job faces a choice not only of which jobs to accept, but where to search for a job. In this connection, differences in job security across sectors of the economy would appear to be a major concern of...