American Economist articles from September 1998

American Economist archives from September 1998

Political economy, politics and religion: intertwined and indissoluble passions.
September 22, 1998... I When I returned to Cambridge at the end of August 1997 after two terms of leave in my native Australia, I was delighted to find waiting for me, a letter from Professor Szenberg asking me to contribute to his ongoing series on the life...

The economics of grants and exchange: the transactions matrix.
September 22, 1998... Introduction The purpose of this paper is to encourage cross-fertilization between Grants Economics and other fields of economics. It continues the evaluation of the contributions made to economics by Grants Economics explored in an...

Do introductory economics students learn more if their instructor has a Ph.D.?
September 22, 1998... The single greatest impediment to good teaching of economics, of course, is that we only qualify to do it by attending economics graduate school. That was the most intellectually stifling experience of my life and a model of how not to teach....

The scholarly journal literature of economics: a historical profile of the AER, JPE, and QJE.(American Economic Review; Journal of Political Economy; Quarterly Journal of Economics)
September 22, 1998... Introduction The scholarly journal literature in economics recently entered into its second century. Of the three major general journals in economics, the Quarterly Journal of Economics is the elder statesman, having commenced publication...

Problems in using the social sciences citation index to rank economics journals.
September 22, 1998... I. Introduction Liebowitz and Palmer (1984) and Laband and Piette (June 1994), in two influential studies, have used the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) Journal Citation Reports to rank economics journals, and measure their relative...

Sectoral shocks and unemployment rate fluctuations.
September 22, 1998... I - Introduction One of the basic problems in macroeconomics has been to provide explanations for aggregate business fluctuations. In the classical model the level of production is determined by exogenous tastes and technology. The basic...

Productivity growth and public sector employment.
September 22, 1998... 1. Introduction There is broad recognition that, with reference to U.S. data, there has been a rise in the share of public sector employment over the past several decades. [See, for instance, the standard labor economics textbook in its...

One point on the LSAT: how much is it worth? Standardized tests as a determinant of earnings.(Law School Admission Test)
September 22, 1998... In their efforts to explain the determinants of earnings, economists have long acknowledged the importance of "ability" in the earnings equation. Some posit that ability is actually defined by earnings since in theory, wages are equal to...

Import quotas, foreign capital and income distribution: a comment.
September 22, 1998... I. Introduction In a recent paper in this journal, Yeh (1998) provides an analysis which appears to add new intellectual rigor to what is a now a very old argument for protection. The notion that import restrictions are desirable because...

The aesthetics of research, a note.
September 22, 1998... Words that express aesthetic values, such as "beautiful," "ingenious," "simple," "graceful," and "elegant," appear increasingly in the writings of scholars, including economists. Although aesthetic criteria are hardly clear, for some, these...