We estimate a model of homogeneous capital investment with two installation possibilities - replacement and expansion using observations at the establishment level. We find that regime switches identified by ad hoc measures of lumpy investment do not adequately distinguish expansionary from replacement activities. In fact, during periods of expansion, firms spend just as much on replacement capital. Also, using the common 20% rule would not assign a spike to almost 65% of all observations that include expansionary investment in this dataset. Finally, replacement although less responsive to fundamentals than expansions cannot be regarded as an autonomous part of investment.
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This three-volume handbook includes state-of-the-art surveys in different areas of neoclassical production economics. Volumes 1 and 2 cover theoretical and methodological issues only. Volume 3 includes surveys of empirical applications in different areas like manufacturing, agriculture, banking, energy and environment, and so forth.
The book collects articles published by Daniel Hamermesh between 1969 and 2013 dealing with the general topic of the demand for labor. The first section presents empirical studies of basic issues in labor demand, including the extent to which different types of labor are substitutes, how firms' and workers' investments affect labor turnover, and how costs of adjusting employment affect the dynamics of employment and patterns of labor turnover. The second section examines the impacts of various labor-market policies, including minimum wages, penalty pay for using overtime hours or hours worked on weekends or nights, severance pay for displaced workers, and payroll taxes to finance unemployment insurance benefits. The final section deals with general questions of discrimination by employers along various dimensions, including looks, gender and ethnicity, in all cases focusing on the process of discrimination and the behavior that results. Throughout the focus is on the development of theoretically-based hypotheses and testing them using the most appropriate data, often data collected uniquely for the particular project.
We construct a vintage capital model of economic growth in which the decision to replace old technologies with new ones is modeled explicitly. Depreciation in this environment is an economic, not a physical concept. We describe the balanced growth paths and the transitional dynamics of this economy. We illustrate the importance of vintage capital by analyzing the response of the economy to fiscal policies designed to stimulate investment in new technologies. A revised version of this paper is published in the Journal of Monetary Economics, v. 40, no. 3(December 1997):457-499.
A less-expensive grayscale paperback version is available. Search for ISBN 9781680922936. Principles of Accounting is designed to meet the scope and sequence requirements of a two-semester accounting course that covers the fundamentals of financial and managerial accounting. This book is specifically designed to appeal to both accounting and non-accounting majors, exposing students to the core concepts of accounting in familiar ways to build a strong foundation that can be applied across business fields. Each chapter opens with a relatable real-life scenario for today's college student. Thoughtfully designed examples are presented throughout each chapter, allowing students to build on emerging accounting knowledge. Concepts are further reinforced through applicable connections to more detailed business processes. Students are immersed in the "why" as well as the "how" aspects of accounting in order to reinforce concepts and promote comprehension over rote memorization.
The unsatisfactory performance of the United States economy during the 1970s generated considerable debate over potential new directions for economic policy. This volume, the result of the second Wharton/Reliance Symposium held in May 1983, presents and analyzes a range of economic policy options. The focus of the volume is on potential policy remedies for the economic problems of slow real output and productivity growth. Given the range of issues covered and the alternative viewpoints presented, this collection does not search for an overall policy consensus. To focus on consensus would have required narrowing both the subject matter and the distinctive viewpoints that are presented here. The result is an open discussion of a set of existing and innovative policy options. Contributors include Henry A. Kissinger, former Secretary of State; Nobel Laureate Lawrence R. Klein, Lester C. Thurow, Professor of Economics and Management at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Senator Alan Cranson; Alfred E. Kahn, Chairman of the Council on Wage and Price Stability under President Carter; William W. Winpisinger, International President of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers; and Justine Farr Rodriguez, Senior Economist with the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, among many others.
The central idea underlying this work is to convert the Walrasian general equilibrium structure (formalized in the 1950s by Kenneth Arrow, Gerard Debreu and others) from an abstract representation of an economy into realistic models of actual economies.
September 1998 Although trade liberalization has been linked econometrically and through casual empiricism to large income increases, attempts to quantify its impact in static simulation models have shown estimated gains. This paper shows that when the endogenous dynamic effects of trade liberalization are built into simulation models, the estimated gains are indeed very large. But complementary regulatory, financial market, and macroeconomic reforms are important to realize the largest gains. Rutherford and Tarr develop a numerical endogenous growth model approximating an infinite horizon, which allows them to investigate the relationship between trade liberalization and economic growth. Economic theory generally implies that trade liberalization will improve economic growth, and the two phenomena are positively correlated in empirical tests, but the connection is not well-substantiated in numerical general equilibrium models. In the authors' model, an intermediate input affects aggregate output through a Dixit-Stiglitz function. Additional varieties provide the engine of growth in this framework and the existence of this mechanism magnifies the welfare costs. In this model with lump sum revenue replacement, reducing a tariff from 20 percent to 10 percent produces a welfare increase (in terms of Hicksian equivalent variation over the infinite horizon) of 10.7 percent of the present value of consumption in their central model, where the economy is assumed to be unable to borrow on international financial markets. If macroeconomic and financial reforms are in place that would allow international borrowing, however, the same tariff cut is estimated to result in a 37 percent increase in Hicksian equivalent variation. On the other hand, if inefficient replacement taxes must be used in an economy without the capacity to borrow internationally, the gains would be reduced to 4.7 percent. Larger tariff cuts-typical of those in many developing countries over the past 30 years-produce larger estimated welfare gains at least proportionate to the size of the cut. The authors apply the model to five developing countries and estimate the impact of the tariff changes those countries plan to undertake as part of Uruguay Round commitments. Because of the dynamic effects, estimated gains are considerably larger than those found in the literature on the impact of the Uruguay Round. This paper-a product of Trade, Development Research Group-is part of a larger effort in the group to assess the impact of trade and investment on economic growth. The study was funded by the Bank's Research Support Budget under the research project The Dynamic Impact of Trade Liberalization in Developing Countries (RPO 681-40). David Tarr may be contacted at [email protected].
