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1681 publications found
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Book Series
April 01, 1992
Profits, Deficits, and Instability
AbstractBusiness accounting defines profits as total revenue minus total costs. Economic theory uses various definitions of profits according to what is being measured (for example, return to ownership, national income profits, real profits) and for what purpose. The concept of profits, however, cannot and should not be reduced to a matter of measurement, but should […]
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Working Paper No. 72
January 11, 1992
The Capital Development of the Economy and the Structure of Financial Institutions
AbstractThis paper evolves from the sharp contrast in Smithian and Keynesian views about the relationship between the financial structure and the economy. The Smithian perspective implies that the financial structure is irrelevant, whereas the Keynesian position concludes that effective financing is necessary for the "capital development of the economy"- there is also a need to […]
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Working Paper No. 71
January 10, 1992
Macroeconomic Market Incentive Plans
AbstractThis paper explores the contemporary debate among economists on the means to move the economy toward high employment without inflation-beyond the traditional instruments of monetary and fiscal policy. The authors pay particular attention to the Market Anti-Inflation Plan (MAP), submitted by Lerner and Colander in 1980. The reasons economists have searched for alternative measures relate […]
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Working Paper No. 70
January 09, 1992
The Distributional Implications of the Tax Changes in the 1980s
AbstractThis paper studies changes in the United States as a consequence of the Economic Recovery Act of 1981 (ERITA), the Tax Equality and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 (TEFRA), and the Tax Reform Act of 1986 (TRA). The effects of ERITA, TEFRA, and TRA are demonstrated via measures of pre-tax and post-tax inequality based on […]
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Working Paper No. 69
January 08, 1992
Reconstituting the United States’ Financial Structure
AbstractDeposit insurance, the savings and loan industry, facets of the insurance industry, and a significant number of private banks have all been plagued by recent collapse. The legislative agenda goes beyond merely funding the shortfall in deposit insurance funds: Congress has suggested that reforming the deposit insurance function, as well as the associated regulatory and […]
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Working Paper No. 68
January 01, 1992
Transfer and Life Cycle Wealth in Japan, 1974–1984
AbstractThis paper measures, via the cumulation of life cycle saving method, the contribution of transfer to total wealth accumulation among worker households from 1974 to 1984. The findings suggest that under either the Modigliam or Kotlifoff and Summers definitions of transfer wealth, capital accumulation for these households is largely the result of life cycle saving. […]
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Working Paper No. 67
December 10, 1991
Employment Restructuring and the Labor Market Status of Young Black Men in the 1980s
AbstractThe decline in the employment status of young black men relative to their white peers in the post-1970 U.S. Labor market is the impetus for this research. This paper examines the effects of recent employment restructuring on young workers by race and sex. In the case of the least educated group of young black men […]
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Working Paper No. 66
November 10, 1991
The Transition to a Market Economy
AbstractThe social transformation of Eastern Europe has proceeded much faster, and the destruction of communism’s legitimacy and efficacy has been more complete, than was deemed possible even a few years ago. A common tenet among the economies now emerging from communism is the lack of significant private wealth, even though there are capital assets that […]
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Working Paper No. 65
November 08, 1991
A Package of Policies to Permanently Increase Output without Inflation
AbstractEconomists have searched for policies that concurrently establish full employment with stable prices and high output. The supply side theorists of the 1980s claimed they could produce increased output with lower inflation: The crux of their argument is that "taxes and subsidies create a wedge between the private and social returns from productive activities. As […]
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Working Paper No. 64
November 06, 1991
Market Processes and Thwarting Systems
AbstractThis paper suggests that there are two longstanding views on business cycles and economic dynamics: One emphasizes endogenous stability plus exogenous disturbances, while the other focuses on endogenous instability plus institutional ‘containing’ or "thwarting" mechanisms. The latter tradition regards business cycles and economic instability as the natural and inherent consequence of self-interest-motivated behavior in complex […]
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Working Paper No. 63
September 10, 1991
Wealth Accumulation of the Elderly in Extended Families in Japan and the Distribution of Wealth within Japanese Cohorts by Household Composition
AbstractThis paper is a critique of the literature on transfer wealth accumulation in Japan during the postwar period. The emphasis is on selected works in two areas that are closely related: the accumulation of wealth by the elderly in extended families in Japan, and the distribution of wealth within Japanese cohorts by household composition. The […]
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Working Paper No. 62
July 10, 1991
The Changing Contributions of Men and Women to the Level and Distribution of Family Income, 1968–1988
AbstractIn the past twenty years, the labor force participation and earnings of women, especially married women, have risen dramatically. Over the same period, men’s earnings have increased only modestly, and the distribution of family income has grown less equal. In this paper, we analyze the impact of changes in the level and distribution of earnings […]
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Working Paper No. 61
July 09, 1991
Changes in Earnings Differentials in the 1980s
AbstractThis paper analyzes changes in U.S. earnings differentials in the 1980s between race, gender, age, and schooling groups. There are four main sets of results to report. First, the economic position of less-educated workers declined relative to the more-educated among almost all demographic groups. Education-earnings differentials clearly rose for whites, but less clearly for blacks, […]
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Working Paper No. 60
July 08, 1991
Who Are the Truly Poor?
AbstractIn this paper we study changes in the prevalence and composition of poverty in the United States over the 1973–1988 period, focusing on the first and last years. Over this period, official poverty rose from 23.6 million people (11.4 percent of the population) to 31.9 million (13.1 percent), passing over a peak in the recession […]
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Working Paper No. 59
July 07, 1991
The Health, Earnings Capacity, and Poverty of Single-mother Families
AbstractApproximately 1.4 million single mothers have substantial health problems. Even if they were to work full time, they would be unlikely to earn enough to adequately provide for themselves and their children. Many of these women are not likely to find employment that offers health insurance coverage for themselves or their children. Employment is thus […]
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Working Paper No. 58
July 06, 1991
Social Security Annuities and Transfers
AbstractThe division of social security (OASI) benefits into an annuity portion and a transfer portion has been well documented. I have discussed this issue extensively in previous work (1987b, 1988, 1990, and forthcoming), as did Burkhauser and Warlick (1981) previously. My methodology is quite similar to theirs. The annuity portion is defined as the benefit […]
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Working Paper No. 57
July 05, 1991
Why Were Poverty Rates So High in the 1980s?
AbstractThis paper explores the unexpectedly slow decline in poverty that occurred over the expansion of the 1980s. We present evidence on the "stickiness" in the poverty rate in the past decade, compared to earlier decades. The following section investigates several potential non-earnings-related explanations for this fact. There is little evidence that the slowdown in the […]
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Working Paper No. 56
July 04, 1991
W(h)ither the Middle Class?
AbstractResearch using cross-sectional survey ‘snapshots’ of household income taken over the past quarter century reveals a growing inequality in the distribution of annual money income of households in the United States (Thurow, 1987; Levy, 1987; Levy and Michel, 1991; Michel, 1991; Karoly, 1990; Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 1990; Easterlin, MacDonald and Macunovich, 1990), […]
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Working Paper No. 55
June 10, 1991
The Measurement of Chronic and Transitory Poverty; with Application to the United States
AbstractThis paper proposes a method of measuring chronic and transitory poverty based on any additively-decomposable index of aggregate poverty. Chronic poverty and transitory poverty in the United States are measured using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (1987 interviewing year). In an attempt to identify the most impoverished subpopulations, poverty indices are decomposed […]
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Working Paper No. 54
June 09, 1991
Why the Ex-Communist Countries Should Take the “Middle Way” to the Market Economy
AbstractThe ex-communist countries of Europe as well as Soviet Union want to find a way out of the command economy to a market system. The common advice (e.g., Lipton and Sachs, Kornai) has been to go quickly “all the way” to a fully capitalist economy. The difficulties of this policy are now becoming clear. This […]
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Working Paper No. 53
May 10, 1991
A Critical Analysis of Empirical Studies of Transfers in Japan
AbstractNo further information available.
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Working Paper No. 52
April 10, 1991
Debt, Price Flexibility, and Aggregate Stability
AbstractIn conventional macroeconomic thought, price flexibility stabilizes thc economy. The more quickly prices fall (or inflation decreases) in a demand-induced recession, the faster output returns to its full-employment level. An alternative tradition, however, suggests that price flexibility can be destabilizing. If a recession reduces expectations of Jitlzre prices, this can raise current real interest rates […]
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Working Paper No. 51
April 09, 1991
Financial Crises
AbstractThe presentations at this conference are by economists from Academies and economists who professionally confront real world problems, either in private finance or in public policy. As economists we accept that the remarks made by Keynes in the closing passage of The General Theory are true: "… the ideas of economists and political philosophers, both […]
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Working Paper No. 50
April 08, 1991
How Useful Are Comparisons of Present Debt Problems with the 1930s?
AbstractMy assignment for this Conference on the Crisis ln Finance, as I understand is, is in the first instance to bring to bear the debt experience of the Great Depression of 1929/1940. I summarize first the record as shown in a Twentieth Century Fund report, which I prepared in 1938 for the Fund’s Committee on […]
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