The production economics of economics production

How is new economic knowledge produced over time? That depends on how the expertise of authors is managed within economic journals. Using data from 41 major economics journals spanning 21 years (1994–2014), we find that both the intensive margin (article length) and extensive margin (article number) of the discipline have been growing. In particular, the extensive margin has outgrown the intensive margin, such that each article produces absolutely more but relatively less knowledge. This pattern is highly consistent with a model of within‐journal specialization. As predicted by the model, the share of an individual article shrinks less in general interest journals and in more prestigious journals, where expertise is less substitutable across topics.     

Macmillan economics

Tim Farmiloe (publishing academic division) and Stephen Rutt (publisher, higher-education division) outline Macmillan's publishing plans for economics books.     

hayek's economics

The dispersal of information in the economy is the key to Hayek's analysis of economic planning, the trade cycle and entrepreneurship. Gerald Steele, a lecturer at Lancaster University, explores Hayek's analysis. The function of the market is to coordinate this dispersed information.     

election economics

Economic management is crucial to winning elections, Robert Lind of UBS Phillips and Drew reviews the prospects and outlines possible strategies for victory.     

routledge economics

Alan Jarvis, economics editor of Routledge, outlines his publishing plans for the coming year. He also describes Routledge's role as Hayek's publisher.     

edward elgar economics

Edward Elgar, managing director of publishers Edward Elgar, outlines his publishing plans for the coming year.     

Oxford UP economics

Andrew Schuller, economics editor of the Oxford University Press, outlines his publishing plans for the coming year.     

harcourt brace economics

Jennifer Pegg, economics editor with Harcourt Brace, outlines her publishing plans for economics books for the rest of 1993 and beyond.     

black well economics

In the first of a series of articles by economics editors at leading publishers, Mark Allin outlines what economics books Blackwell plans to publish over the next year.     

Salvaging law and economics

Some of Law and Economics’ pivotal claims have come to be criticized as a result of empirical findings that question their viability. Particularly, the premise that agents consistently act rationally and with their self-interest in mind seems problematic. What the consequences of the criticism mean for Law and Economics’ tenability depends largely on the questions whether (1) some elements are unassailable to the alternative’s objections and (2) the alternative is a systematic whole. It is argued that Law and Economics may be salvaged, if it is minimized and its ambitions are tempered. This means focusing on the stable, a priori, elements inherent to it.     

Christian economics at the origin

The New Testament contained copious information on how Jesus and the Apostles managed their households and personal finances. Christian economics originated in references made by Jesus, Paul, and Peter to oikonomia. Peter in Jerusalem introduced the incipient practice of Christian oikonomia through dispensing welfare, and Christians in Rome unfolded oikonomia when they acquired the catacombs. The funding and owning of built structures transformed Christianity from a private collective to a corporate institution. Constantine the Great marked this transition when he designated the recipient of a substantial endowment as the Corpus Christianorum. A trajectory that began in New Testament oikonomia concluded when Christianity had become an institutional actor in the economic sphere.     

Managerial economics and operating beta

We model a firm's unlevered beta in terms of elementary microeconomic variables. The source of uncertainty is a shock to demand. A firm decides on capital before the shock, and on labor, output, and price after the shock. Some insights are: (1) with decreasing returns to scale of production, beta has an inverse relation with price elasticity of demand, given the income elasticity of demand; (2) beta has a direct relation with the firm's returns to scale of production; (3) due to the impact of operating leverage, beta has an inverse relation with industry concentration; and (4) for a given returns to scale, beta has a direct relation with the capital–labor ratio that strengthens as industry concentration decreases. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Optimal agglomerations in dynamic economics

We study rational expectations equilibrium problems and social optimum problems in infinite horizon spatial economies in the context of a Ramsey type capital accumulation problem with geographical spillovers. We identify sufficient local and global conditions for the emergence (or not) of optimal agglomeration, using techniques from monotone operator theory and spectral theory in infinite dimensional Hilbert spaces. We show that agglomerations may emerge, with any type of returns to scale (increasing or decreasing) and with the marginal productivity of private capital increasing or decreasing with respect to the spatial externality. This is a fairly general result indicating the importance of the network structure of the spatial externality relative to the properties of the aggregate production function. Our analytical methods can be used to systematically study optimal potential agglomeration and clustering in dynamic economics.