Economic Ideas You Should Forget
Economic Ideas You Should Forget

Author: Bruno S. Frey

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2017-03-08

Total Pages: 168

ISBN-13: 3319474588

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Reporting on cutting-edge advances in economics, this book presents a selection of commentaries that reveal the weaknesses of several core economics concepts. Economics is a vigorous and progressive science, which does not lose its force when particular parts of its theory are empirically invalidated; instead, they contribute to the accumulation of knowledge. By discussing problematic theoretical assumptions and drawing on the latest empirical research, the authors question specific hypotheses and reject major economic ideas from the “Coase Theorem” to “Say’s Law” and “Bayesianism.” Many of these ideas remain prominent among politicians, economists and the general public. Yet, in the light of the financial crisis, they have lost both their relevance and supporting empirical evidence. This fascinating and thought-provoking collection of 71 short essays written by respected economists and social scientists from all over the world will appeal to anyone interested in scientific progress and the further development of economics.

Inflation, Stagflation, Relative Prices, and Imperfect Information
Inflation, Stagflation, Relative Prices, and Imperfect Information

Author: Alex Cukierman

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1984-11-30

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 0521256305

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Professor Cukierman presents a summary view of the recent imperfect information approach to inflation and its real effects, focusing in particular on two types of informational limitations. The first involves situations in which individuals have asymmetric information about the current general price level and consequently confuse relative and aggregate changes in prices. The second considers models in which individuals cannot distinguish permanent from transitory changes in the economic environment. The book assumes no mathematical training beyond standard calculus and elementary statistics.

The Price of Capital Goods: A Driver of Investment Under Threat
The Price of Capital Goods: A Driver of Investment Under Threat

Author: Weicheng Lian

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2019-06-28

Total Pages: 84

ISBN-13: 149832343X

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Over the past three decades, the price of machinery and equipment fell dramatically relative to other prices in advanced and emerging market and developing economies. Using cross-country and sectoral data, we show that the decline in the relative price of tangible tradable capital goods provided a significant impetus to the capital deepening that took place during the same time period. The broad-based decline in the relative price of machinery and equipment, in turn, was driven by the faster productivity growth in the capital goods producing sectors relative to the rest of the economy, and deeper trade integration, which induced domestic producers to lower prices and increase their efficiency. Our findings suggest an additional channel through which rising trade tensions and sluggish productivity could threaten real investment growth going forward.

Why Popcorn Costs So Much at the Movies
Why Popcorn Costs So Much at the Movies

Author: Richard B. McKenzie

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2008-04-17

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 0387770011

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This entertaining book seeks to unravel an array of pricing puzzles from the one captured in the book’s title to why so many prices end with "9" (as in $2.99 or $179). Along the way, the author explains how the 9/11 terrorists have, through the effects of their heinous acts on the relative prices of various modes of travel, killed more Americans since 9/11 than they killed that fateful day. He also explains how well-meaning efforts to spur the use of alternative, supposedly environmentally friendly fuels have starved millions of people around the world and given rise to the deforestation of rainforests in Malaysia and Indonesia.

The Nature of the Firm
The Nature of the Firm

Author: Oliver E. Williamson

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 9780195083569

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This volume features a series of essays which arose from a conference on economics, addressing the question: what is the nature of the firm in economic analysis? This paperback edition includes the Nobel Lecture of R.N. Case.

The Great Inflation
The Great Inflation

Author: Michael D. Bordo

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2013-06-28

Total Pages: 545

ISBN-13: 0226066959

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Controlling inflation is among the most important objectives of economic policy. By maintaining price stability, policy makers are able to reduce uncertainty, improve price-monitoring mechanisms, and facilitate more efficient planning and allocation of resources, thereby raising productivity. This volume focuses on understanding the causes of the Great Inflation of the 1970s and ’80s, which saw rising inflation in many nations, and which propelled interest rates across the developing world into the double digits. In the decades since, the immediate cause of the period’s rise in inflation has been the subject of considerable debate. Among the areas of contention are the role of monetary policy in driving inflation and the implications this had both for policy design and for evaluating the performance of those who set the policy. Here, contributors map monetary policy from the 1960s to the present, shedding light on the ways in which the lessons of the Great Inflation were absorbed and applied to today’s global and increasingly complex economic environment.

Learning from SARS
Learning from SARS

Author: Institute of Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2004-04-26

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13: 0309182158

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The emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in late 2002 and 2003 challenged the global public health community to confront a novel epidemic that spread rapidly from its origins in southern China until it had reached more than 25 other countries within a matter of months. In addition to the number of patients infected with the SARS virus, the disease had profound economic and political repercussions in many of the affected regions. Recent reports of isolated new SARS cases and a fear that the disease could reemerge and spread have put public health officials on high alert for any indications of possible new outbreaks. This report examines the response to SARS by public health systems in individual countries, the biology of the SARS coronavirus and related coronaviruses in animals, the economic and political fallout of the SARS epidemic, quarantine law and other public health measures that apply to combating infectious diseases, and the role of international organizations and scientific cooperation in halting the spread of SARS. The report provides an illuminating survey of findings from the epidemic, along with an assessment of what might be needed in order to contain any future outbreaks of SARS or other emerging infections.