American Economist articles from September 1997

American Economist archives from September 1997

How to build an economic model in your spare time.
September 22, 1997... 1. Getting Ideas The first step is to get an idea. This is not all that hard to do. The tricky part is to get a good idea. The way you do this is to come up with lots and lots of ideas and throw out all the ones that aren't good. But where...

The story of a reluctant economist.
September 22, 1997... I was not a reluctant economist at the start. In the beginning, economics opened up a new and exciting world. The Keynesian Revolution was in full swing, and like other graduate students, I was caught up in it. The message of the Revolution was...

Reflections on our collaboration. (economics research)
September 22, 1997... "How has it been possible for you - -over the relatively short period of a decade - to have produced five books,(1) ten book chapters, some twenty-four articles in professional economics and law journals, as well as a plethora of popular pieces...

Chaos theory versus Heisenberg's uncertainty: risk, uncertainty and economic theory.
September 22, 1997... Introduction There has been a rising chorus of heterodox economists who advocate the irrelevance of the notion of equilibrium in a world characterized by evolutionary change (see Nelson, 1995). These economists - coming from diverse traditions...

Optimum choice of an MNC: location and investment. (multinational corporation)
September 22, 1997... The existing literature is quite voluminous on how one country engages in trade relations with another country, how international trade is mutually gainful to each other, what factors determine trade structures, and so on. There has been a...

The effect of risk-aversion on the portfolio allocation between taxable bonds and non-taxable bonds of the same risk.
September 22, 1997... I. Introduction This paper is concerned with the dubious validity of a rule of thumb popular among members of the investment community who trade municipal bonds. There is a simple proposition found in most college-level finance textbooks...

Learning techniques in economics at the principles level.
September 22, 1997... INTRODUCTION When a student who has not performed satisfactorily on an exam approaches us for study advice, we find ourselves at a disadvantage. Teachers in other disciplines have researched and written extensively on the most effective...

Optimization analysis of the U.S. aggregate consumption: a goodness-of-fit approach.
September 22, 1997... I. Introduction The U.S. economy has undergone a dramatic transformation from consisting of a large number of small firms during the 18th and 19th centuries to being increasingly dominated by giant corporations in the 20th century. The growth...

Supplemental Instruction and the enhancement of student performance in economics principles.
September 22, 1997... I. INTRODUCTION Understanding the determinants of student comprehension in introductory economics courses has long been of interest to instructors and researchers in economic education. Most recently in this journal, for example, Grimes (1995)...

Using an empirically estimated production function for Major League Baseball to examine worker disincentives associated with multi-year contracts.
September 22, 1997... 1. Introduction As an industry, Major League Baseball can serve as a wonderful laboratory for economists. Few other industries are as conscientious in collecting production data and reporting them openly: production statistics, both on the...

Racial differences in National Basketball Association players' salaries: a new look.
September 22, 1997... INTRODUCTION Professional sports, unlike most other industries in America, have provided blacks with the opportunity to succeed. The participation and success of blacks have not always been readily accepted and appreciated, however. In the...

Supply and demand for morning kindergarten: a comment. (reply to Nancy Ruth Fox, The American Economist, vol. 40, no. 1, Spring 1996, p. 60)
September 22, 1997... In a recent contribution to this journal, Nancy Ruth Fox (1996) compares the efficiency of a first come, first served (FCFS) allocation system for morning kindergarten with both a price system and a modified market system. Her investigation is...

Supply and demand for morning kindergarten: reply to comment by Joseph G. Eisenhauer. (response to article in this issue, p. 91)
September 22, 1997... Professor Eisenhauer's careful analysis of my article, "A Case Study of the Supply and Demand for Morning Kindergarten" raises several interesting and cogent points. Above all, generalizing the results, both theoretical and empirical, would...

Presidential Economics, 3d revised ed.
September 22, 1997... Herbert Stein, former chairman of President Nixon's Council of Economic Advisors and currently senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, has revised Presidential Economics, extending the description and analysis of macroeconomic...

Homeworkers in Global Perspective: Invisible No More.
September 22, 1997... Since the beginning of this century, home-based work has been a topic of debate in the arena of labor economics. Current studies and discussions on home-based labor, however, have a different focus than those from the first half of this century....