Economic Inquiry articles from October 2005

Economic Inquiry archives from October 2005

Forced information disclosure and the fallacy of transparency in markets.
October 1, 2005... Ratepayers (i.e. California consumers) are aided when market participants have access to this level of [comprehensive utility planning data] information.... market participants (e.g. generators, energy service providers...

Silent auctions in the field and in the laboratory.
October 1, 2005... I. INTRODUCTION The American Association of Fundraising Counsel estimates that there was $240.72 billion donated by private individuals, foundations, estates, and corporations to charities in 2003 and that total charitable giving amounts...

Unemployment risk and compensating differentials in New Jersey manufacturing.
October 1, 2005... I. INTRODUCTION As with many questions that still engage modern economists, Adam Smith observed and commented on the phenomenon of compensating wage differentials. Smith (1909, chap. 10) observed that ceteris paribus, wages were higher the...

The effect of youth alcohol initiation on high school completion.
October 1, 2005... I. INTRODUCTION Alcohol consumption by youths is viewed as a critical problem in the United States, and research concerning the effects of youth alcohol consumption has borne out this view. Grant and Dawson (1997), Moore and Cook (1995),...

A simple solution to the identification problem in detailed wage decompositions.
October 1, 2005... I. INTRODUCTION Oaxaca and Ransom (1999) show that the Oaxaca decomposition suffers from one nagging conceptual problem: The detailed Oaxaca decomposition of wage differentials is not invariant to the choice of reference group when dummy...

Dynamic common agency and investment: the economics of movie distribution.
October 1, 2005... I. INTRODUCTION The management of vertical relationships is one of the fundamental issues addressed by contract and organization theorists. How do contract choices interact with other strategic choices? What are the consequences of...

Passenger leaks and the fate of small community air service.
October 1, 2005... I. INTRODUCTION Small community air service has undergone a significant transformation since deregulation in 1978. Free to establish prices and routes, most major air carriers have moved to a "hub and spoke" system, in which the carriers...

The welfare effects of distribution regulations in OECD countries.
October 1, 2005... I. INTRODUCTION The distribution sector plays a crucial and large role in most economies, (1) In the G-7 (United States, Japan, Germany, France, United Kingdom, Italy, and Canada), distribution's share of gross domestic product (GDP)...

A semi-parametric model for asymmetric information in health plan markets.
October 1, 2005... I. INTRODUCTION There are two potential sources of asymmetric information that induce market failure in the health plan market. The first, adverse selection, is analyzed by Rothschild and Stiglitz (1976). In their study, individuals are...

Income smoothing and self-control: the case of schoolteachers.
October 1, 2005... Experimental economics is frequently criticized on the grounds that the incentives offered to subjects in the laboratory are too low to give the results any validity. In particular, when the results reject the standard economic maximizing...

Academic tenure, posttenure effort, and contractual damages.
October 1, 2005... I.INTRODUCTION In this article we explore the incentive properties of academic tenure relative to alternatives that might be substitutes for tenure. We do not present a comprehensive theory of academic tenure, but rather emphasize the role...

A limit of bilateral contracting institutions.
October 1, 2005... I. INTRODUCTION The double auction (DA) institution has a solid and deserved reputation as the archetypal efficient market institution. Beginning with Smith (1962), 30 years of experimental research shows that the DA achieves very high and...

A nonequilibrium analysis of unanimity rule, majority rule, and Pareto.
October 1, 2005... I. INTRODUCTION Voting theory is important for understanding economics as well as politics. International organizations vote on trade regulations, legislatures vote on minimum wage, and governments vote on the provision of public goods....

Ambiguity about audit probability, tax compliance, and taxpayer welfare.
October 1, 2005... I. INTRODUCTION To encourage voluntary compliance with the tax code, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) relies heavily on a policy of auditing tax returns and levying penalties when undeclared income is detected, with penalties linked...

Editor's report.(Editorial)
October 1, 2005... The 2004 volume of Economic, Inquiry consisted of 54 papers in a wide variety of fields. These papers included theoretical, empirical, and experimental studies, and were in fields that ranged from labor and industrial organization to...