NEW INSIGHTS INTO THE DECLINE OF ANTITRUST ENFORCEMENT

The total number of cases that the Antitrust Division has filed during the past decade has increased, but the number of significant criminal price-fixing cases has declined. Policy changes have had significant effects on other areas of enforcement. This paper argues, however, that the decline in this dimension of antitrust enforcement can be explained by a 1974 act of Congress that increased criminal penalties for price-fixing violations from the misdemeanor level to the felony level. According to this argument, the stiffer penalties' deterrent impact has reduced the supply of antitrust violations. In this respect, the analysis highlights the flaws in measuring the strength of enforcement from the frequency of cases filed. In addition, the paper reports empirical evidence from a multinomial logit model of defendant plea choice indicating that the felony penalties encourage defendants to plead not guilty more frequently. Furthermore, data on the outcomes of criminal antitrust cases reveal that the government has greater difficulty in obtaining convictions when felony penalties apply. From the viewpoint of enforcers, these findings imply that detecting and prosecuting significant price-fixing violations is more difficult. This, in turn, helps explain the reduction in related private enforcement.     

THE ROLE OF FINANCIAL CAPITAL IN PRODUCTION

It is increasingly acknowledged that the financial structure of a firm is an important determinant of its production costs. This paper argues that the use of a firm's liabilities should be seen as a separate input in the production process. At the same time, the input of non-financial assets is limited to the value that is used up during the reference period. The paper elaborates on these ideas and shows their use in empirical work. It is concluded that the approach set out in this paper establishes a much closer relationship of general economic accounting and analysis to business economics.     

THE ROLE OF TRANSACTIONS IN KIND IN DEVELOPING ECONOMIES

The paper is concerned with non-monetized transactions which are dimensionally important in developing countries. The notion of degree of monetization attaches to all real flows. It is necessary to analyze non-monetized transactions in order to a have a better understanding of the producing and consuming activities of households which contribute a large part of national product in less developed countries. Among different non-monetized flows, particular attention is paid to the use of the output of own production for different purposes. A survey of Indian information on the degree of non-monetization shows that it is different for different flows: highest for consumption, intermediate for current inputs and lowest for investments. Cross section Indian data indicate that the degree of non-monetization is expected to fall with the improvement in the average household expenditure and urbanisation but it may rise if development occurs largely through agricultural improvement. Some of the Indian findings may apply to other developing countries as well. Normally, estimates of expenditure elasticities based on cross section data are obtained from consumption expenditure on a particular item (e) and the aggregate consumption expenditure (E) without going into the question of the degree of non-monetization of either element. Since traditional models of consumer behaviour apply only to the relation between money expenditure on a particular item (e_m) and the aggregate money expenditure (E_m), it is suggested that the relation between e and E should be broken down into relations between (i) e_m and E_m, (ii) e_k and E_k where these are the corresponding kind elements and (iii)among E, E_m and E_k. Some estimates of elasticity based on this scheme are presented indicating that the procedure is reasonable and suggesting that this type of analysis would probably furnish a suitable framework for answering relevant questions in the field.     

THE ROLE OF THE GOLD STANDARD IN THE GIBSON PARADOX

Recent papers by Lee and Petruzzi (1986) and Barsky and Summers (1988) provide rival theories of how the Gibson Paradox could result from the impact of changes in the interest rate on the real price of gold. This paper empirically tests each model and finds more support for the Lee-Petruzzi approach than the Barsky-Summers approach. The paper also suggests that Lee and Petruzzi may have used an inappropriate method to test their model, and that both papers employed inappropriate sample periods.     

工业设计在长株潭经济发展中的作用

在长株潭经济一体化进程中,工业无疑是经济发展的排头兵,而工业发展又离不开工业设计。重视和加强工业设计能力建设,充分发挥工业设计的重要作用,不仅能更好地塑造长株潭产业形象,有效提升长株潭中小企业的核心竞争力,而且能提高长株潭地区的环境承载力,有力推动长株潭产业的持续发展。     

中国城市化在城乡关系中的作用及其发展

城市化是社会进步的产物，在协调城乡关系中起着十分重要的作用。但长期以来，我国城市化一直滞后于工业化，使大量农业剩余动力滞留在农村和土地上，导致农业劳动生产率低下，城乡差别扩大，城乡对立加剧。城市化是解决城市矛盾的根本途径。加速城市化，首先必须转变几个认识误区，树立正确的城市化发展观，不能因为就城市人口会蛔财政负担，农民进城会带来社会冲突等问题，就不搞城市化。其次，不论大，中，小城市都应在吸收农村劳     

THE FUTURE ROLE OF THE LAW

1. All individual labour relations disputes arising out of breach of contract of employment including unfair dismissal should be capable of being settled by the relatively rapid, inexpensive and informal procedures of the industrial tribunals with further appeal on points of law; 2. The minimum condition of legal recognition for the closed shop should be the effective strengthening in law of protection for the individual union member or prospective member, subject to discretion concerning ‘disruptists7rsquo; 3. In the central area of collective labour relations, the following policy suggestions are made: a) criminal or civil sanctions against individual employees are impractical and best forgotten. Sanctions can only be realistically considered in relation to leaders and organisations; b) the objective for a rational law of strike action (or other forms of direct action) should be limited if it is to be realistic, i.e., not the chopping down of managerial or trade union or shop floor power but insistence on a reasonable degree of orderliness and time for second thoughts in the run up to direct action; c) it is an ancient truth that only fair and reasonable laws will command respect. Disputes procedures are a kind of quasi-law. To command respect and to justify sanctions for its breach, a disputes procedure should be independently certificated as fair and reasonable in accordance with modern labour relations standards. The C.I.R. is at present the obvious body in which to vest this certificating power; d) where adequate procedures and principles are provided by the law to deal with an identified class of industrial dispute, the use of private power, including private collective power, to impose a solution should be legally discouraged.     

THE ROLE OF HOUSE PRICES IN THE MONETARY TRANSMISSION MECHANISM ACROSS EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

This paper provides a discussion of the ‘housing market’ channels of the monetary transmission mechanism and offers some evidence of institutional differences in the European housing and mortgage markets. Using a number of Vector Autoregressive models, estimated individually for nine European countries over the pre‐EMU period, we find that house prices are significantly affected by interest rate shocks. The relative role of these interest‐rate‐induced fluctuations in house prices for private consumption is then investigated. We show that house prices may enhance the effects of interest rate shocks on consumer spending in those economies where housing and mortgage markets are relatively more developed and competitive.     

THE IRREDUCIBLE ROLE OF DERIVED MARGINAL UTILITY IN DYNAMIC STOCHASTIC PROGRAMMING

Abstract. Using the important case of multi-period investing between a safe asset with a low mean return and an equity basket with a higher total return but a riskier one, this analysis demonstrates that the relevant stochastic programming involves irreducibly recursive variational relations. The "direct" Lagrange-Chow procedure is related to the derivatives of the Bellman "indirect"'algorithms and shown to require essentially the same computations save only for standard integrations or taking of first derivatives. To demonstrate that the comparison is unchanged when a vector of control variables must be optimized in a many-period stochastic scenario, the problem is solved for a rentier to both decide how much to save in each period and how much to put of each period's investment into risky securities.