Economic Inquiry articles from October 2003

Economic Inquiry archives from October 2003

Are life insurance holdings related to financial vulnerabilities?
October 1, 2003... I. INTRODUCTION The purpose of this article is to examine life insurance holdings and financial vulnerabilities among couples over the life cycle. Two separate concerns motivate our analysis. First, there are reasons to suspect that life...

Determinants of scholarly productivity among male and female economists.
October 1, 2003... I. INTRODUCTION The purpose of this article is to test a model of the determinants of articles produced by male and female academics. Of particular interest is how article production is influenced by coauthorship, institutional research...

Time-series evidence on the nonlinearity hypothesis for public spending.
October 1, 2003... I. INTRODUCTION Endogenous growth theories differ from exogenous growth theories with respect to their assumed relationships between economic growth and policy variables. In contrast to their exogenous counterparts, endogenous growth...

Asset markets and equilibrium selection in public goods games with provision points: an experimental study.
October 1, 2003... I. INTRODUCTION Public good provision is a fundamental source of market failure, since the non-excludability property of such a good makes it possible to consume it for free, once it is supplied. Thus, in the familiar voluntary...

A graphical exposition of the economic theory of regulation.
October 1, 2003... I. INTRODUCTION Historically, many if not most economic theories have advanced in three fairly distinct stages, progressing from descriptive to graphical to mathematical formulations, generally in that sequence. The economic theory of...

Expectations, capital gains, and income.
October 1, 2003... I. INTRODUCTION This article argues that the distinction between expected and unexpected capital gains (losses) is fundamental to the measurement of income. The way capital gains are treated can have a significant impact on major...

The intersection of business, state government, and special interests in federal legislation: an examination of congressional votes on the road to interstate branching.
October 1, 2003... I. INTRODUCTION Over the past 50 years, economists have developed the theory of legislative decision making. Based on utility maximization, the theory models the legislator's responses to constituent demands. The empirical verification of...

Proxies in the new political economy: caveat emptor.
October 1, 2003... I. INTRODUCTION Today proxies for cultural, political, and institutional variables abound in econometric studies, and strong policy recommendations are based on results obtained with them. Unlike the traditional data of economists, they...

Search and taxation in a model of underground economic activities.
October 1, 2003... I. INTRODUCTION It is widely recognized that one major effect of taxation is to stimulate activities in the so-called underground (or shadow) economy. Indeed, the extent of underground activities even in the Western countries is by no...

Credible commitments and investment: does opportunistic ability or incentive matter?
October 1, 2003... The more likely it is that the sovereign will alter property rights for his or her own benefit, the lower the expected returns from investment and the lower in turn the incentive to invest. --North and Weingast, 1989, p. 803 I....

Does investment risk affect the housing decisions of families?
October 1, 2003... I. INTRODUCTION The purpose of this article is to investigate the effect of heightened price volatility in housing markets on homeownership and housing demand. The literature on housing markets has recognized that buying a home involves...

On the evolution of competitive balance: the impact of an increasing global search.
October 1, 2003... When there are no transaction costs the assignment of legal rights have no effect upon the allocation of resources among economic enterprises. --Stigler (1988) I. INTRODUCTION The epigraph captures the essence of what is generally...

And a hockey game broke out: crime and punishment in the NHL.
October 1, 2003... I. INTRODUCTION The economic theory of crime predicts that an increase in policing resources will lead to a decrease in the crime rate. Empirically determining the magnitude of this effect has proved difficult, however, because of an...

Economic inquiry: editor's report.
October 1, 2003... The 2002 volume of Economic Inquiry consisted of 51 articles in a wide variety of fields. These papers include theoretical, empirical, and experimental studies in fields that range from labor and industrial organization to macroeconomics,...