Quarterly Journal of Economics articles from February 2000

Quarterly Journal of Economics archives from February 2000

WHAT MARSHALL DIDN'T KNOW: ON THE TWENTIETH CENTURY'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO ECONOMICS [*].
February 1, 2000... Some of this century's many valuable contributions to economics, like macroeconomics, econometrics, and game theory, are widely recognized. However, arguably equally important is the enhanced role of empirical study permitted by more abundant...

CAUSAL PARAMETERS AND POLICY ANALYSIS IN ECONOMICS: A TWENTIETH CENTURY RETROSPECTIVE [*].
February 1, 2000... The major contributions of twentieth century econometrics to knowledge were the definition of causal parameters within well-defined economic models in which agents are constrained by resources and markets and causes are interrelated, the...

ECONOMIC IMPERIALISM [*].
February 1, 2000... Economics is not only a social science, it is a genuine science. Like the physical sciences, economics uses a methodology that produces refutable implications and tests these implications using solid statistical techniques. In particular,...

MONETARY POLICY RULES AND MACROECONOMIC STABILITY EVIDENCE AND SOME THEORY [*].
February 1, 2000... We estimate a forward-looking monetary policy reaction function for the postwar United States economy, before and after Volcker's appointment as Fed Chairman in 1979. Our results point to substantial differences in the estimated rule across...

RATIONAL DEBATE AND ONE-DIMENSIONAL CONFLICT [*].
February 1, 2000... This paper studies repeated communication regarding a multidimensioanl collective decision in a large population. When preferences coincide but beliefs about the consequences of the various decisions diverge, it is shown, under some specific...

THE DYNAMICS OF REORGANIZATION IN MATCHING MARKETS: A LABORATORY EXPERIMENT MOTIVATED BY A NATURAL EXPERIMENT [*].
February 1, 2000... We create an environment in which congestion forces agents to match inefficiently early. We then introduce one of two centralized clearinghouse mechanisms. One of these has been successfully used to halt this kind of unraveling in a number of...

ECONOMIC PROFITABILITY VERSUS ECOLOGICAL ENTROPY [*].
February 1, 2000... There is a long-standing trade-off in bioculture between concentrating on high-yield varieties and maintaining sufficient diversity to lower the risks of catastrophic infection. The paper uses a simple ecology-based model of endogenous disease...

THE NONNEUTRALITY OF MONETARY POLICY WITH LARGE PRICE OR WAGE SETTERS [*].
February 1, 2000... Monetary rules matter for the equilibrium rate of employment when the number of price-wage setters is small, even when assuming rational expectations, complete information, central bank precommitment, and absence of nominal rigidities. If the...

RESOLVING INDETERMINACY IN DYNAMIC SETTINGS: THE ROLE OF SHOCKS [*].
February 1, 2000... This paper shows that the phenomenon of multiple equilibria can be fragile to the introduction of aggregate shocks. We examine a standard dynamic model of sectoral choice with external increasing returns. Without shocks, the outcome is...

POLICY BOARDS AND POLICY SMOOTHING [*].
February 1, 2000... Partisan politics and random election outcomes generate policy uncertainty and partisan business cycles. To reduce policy uncertainty, society must design the policy-making environment to overcome electoral uncertainty and partisanship. I show...