Sex differentials in the earnings of Ph.D.s.

Using a survey of two cohorts of men and women who received Ph.D.s in the years 1958-63 and 1967-72, the authors test two hypotheses: (1) that the relatively lower earnings of highly educated women can be explained largely by their career interruptions and by their lesser willingness to accumulate human capital in anticipation of such interruptions, and (2) that the differential in earnings between men and women increases with age because of career interruptions and that the gap narrows once women reenter the labor force on a permanent basis The findings do not lend support to either of these hypotheses, leading the authors to reject the proposition that the lower rewards of women Ph.D.s are primarily caused by their own voluntary decisions.     

Scarp the C.A.P.

The abuses of the Common Agricultural Policy are familiar. Richard Howarth argues that they cannot be patched up but can be removed by abolition of the system that supports inefficient French and German small farmers.     

The Cost of the C.A.F

Membership of the Common Market has raise the costs of some food to almost 5 times as much as comparable world prices. Why should the British housewife or taxpayer continue to subsidise inefficient continental farmers?     

美国国防部PPBE运行机制的启示

本文简要介绍了美国国防部PPBE的基本理念、相关概念及美国国防部PPBE运行机制;概述了PPBS周期性过程和谋划、规划和预算等三个相对独立且相互关联的阶段的意义和作用,将国防战略规划管理的普遍性规律和通行规则与中国实际相结合,提炼出一套通用的指导原则、要求及办法,并对我国如何进行战略规划进行了理论探索。     

On Perennial Re-examination of the U.S. Constitution

Abstract . The United States Constitution is still shrouded in myths, clothed in broad terms and garbed with ambiguities. These require constant reinterpretation. If a continuing constitutional convention is thus endemic to the American political system, then is it, as Jefferson said, “a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary”? Justice Jackson wrote that “we are infallible only because we are final,” but it is a maxim of American politics that the Court follows the election returns. In the last analysis, there is a higher court in a republican democracy, the Court of Public Opinion (of which scholars and publicists are the officers) which achieves revision by periodic reinterpretation and re-examination.     

The Making of the Institutional Theory of Social Costs: Discovering the K. W. Kapp and J. M. Clark Correspondence

This article reconstructs the making of the often “overlooked” institutional theory of social costs based on the unexploited correspondence between John Maurice Clark and Karl William Kapp. The reconstruction demonstrates that the institutional argument on social costs was developed as a critique of neoclassical economics and of post‐WWII neoliberalism.     

U.S. Strategic Trade Policy and the Competitiveness of the U.S. Construction Industry in Developing Country Markets

SUMMARY

U.S. government trade policy increasingly reflects “strategic trade” beliefs that, because competition in markets is imperfect, governments can act strategically to affect trade flows and enhance national welfare. The U.S. National Export Strategy targets the infrastructure sector in twelve developing countries as a strategic opportunity for U.S. construction firms. This paper examines whether U.S. government export promotion initiatives effectively implement strategic trade policy by providing appropriate support to these firms in that target market. It concludes that, within limits, they do.     

Structural evolution of the postwar U.S. economy

We consider a time-varying parameter vector autoregressive model with stochastic volatility and mixture innovations to study the empirical relevance of the Lucas critique for the postwar U.S. economy. The model allows blocks of parameters to change at endogenously estimated points of time. Contrary to the Lucas critique, there are large changes at certain points of time in the parameters associated with monetary policy that do not correspond to changes in “reduced-form” parameters for inflation or the unemployment rate. However, the structure of the U.S. economy has evolved considerably over the postwar period, with an apparent reduction in the late 1980s in the impact of monetary policy shocks on inflation, though not on the unemployment rate. Related, we find changes in the Phillips curve tradeoff between inflation and cyclical unemployment (measured as the deviation from the time-varying steady-state unemployment rate implied by the model) in the 1970s and especially since the mid-1990s.     

A Comparitive Study of the Use of Financial Graphs in the Corporate Annual Reports of Major U.S. and U.K. Companies

The use of graphs to disclose information in corporate annual reports represents a significant dimension in financial disclosure management. Surprisingly, no inter-country comparative analysis of this area of voluntary disclosure has been conducted. This study compares the graphical reporting practices in the 1990 annual reports of 176 leading U.S. and U.K. industrial companies. Ninety-two per cent of U.S. companies use graphs compared with 80% of U.K. companies; the mean number of graphs per company being 13.0 and 7.7, respectively. Sales, an earnings measure, earnings per share and dividends per share are the four most frequently graphed aggregate financial performance variables in both countries. Significant differences in several of the variables graphed are found and explained in terms of environmental factors. In both countries, evidence of graphical information manipulation exists in the form of selectivity, measurement distortion, and presentational enhancement. Moderate evidence supports the hypothesis that U.K. companies are more likely than U.S. companies to adopt interpretative shading. Regulators need to clarify the responsibilities of directors and auditors by setting graphical guidelines.     

美军网络媒体价值透视

美军网站的影响力大,功能性强,在宣传、沟通、服务、监督等方面都发挥着重要的作用,成为美军公共事务活动中的重要部分。根据不同的受众群体,美军网站体现出不同的媒体价值功能。     

Modeling the diffusion of public policy innovations among the U.S. States

This paper describes and validates a general model of state diffusion of public policy innovations. The model can be used to identify whether new policies are likely to become fully adopted into the system of states and the time horizon over which this is likely to occur. Limitations and extensions of the model are also concluded.