A Test of U. S. National Economic Policy in the Post-World War II Period

Abstract . This inquiry is an effort to evaluate the macroeconomic performance of the United States economy in the period after the close of World War II in terms of the macroeconomic goals to which national economic policy supposedly had been directed. That is, whether policy achieved full employment, price stability or an adequate rate of growth. Insofar as key indicators can be used as a basis for judgment—and there is, as yet, no scientific basis for measuring how far that reliance can be chanced—it would appear that policy was least successful in attaining full employment with price stability, or full employment, or price stability. In certain infrequent periods, growth seems to have occurred. But was its rate “adequate?” And did it result from policy? Analysis by key indicators may not tell us much, if anything; but it helps to delineate an approach toward policy-monitoring researchers need to cultivate.     

Monetary policy,exchange rates and labor unions in SEE and the CIS during the financial crisis

The objective of this paper is to assess whether the levels of unionization and the rigidity of exchange rates represent a constraint for the monetary policy in South-Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, with a particular focus on the recent economic crisis. Toward that end, a New Keynesian model with price and wage rigidities is used. The results show that monetary policy responded counter-cyclically during the crisis only in countries with weak trade unions and in countries with flexible exchange rates, which indicates that fixed exchange rates and strong trade unions constrain monetary policy in countries in these regions. Also, the findings show that the main driver of price inflation in these countries is not economic activity, but wages, which are affected to a large extent by trade unions. Therefore, trade unions should be active partners in the decision-making processes in these countries.     

India's Evolving Economic Model:

Abstract Over the course of the past 50 years, India has developed as a stable economy. Economic policies of the Indian government have guided and shaped India into a mixed economy. Political stability has been a significant factor in this process. The United States and European economic and political systems had a significant impact on evolution of India's economic model. Financial and economic reforms since 1991 have accelerated the pace of change toward an open market economy both in its internal operations and in its linkages with the global markets. India's economic future is now promising as it moves forward on its unique path of economic policy.     

Alvin Harvey Hansen: Economic Growth and a More Perfect Society: The Economist's Role in Defining the Stagnation Thesis and in Popularizing Keynesianism

Abstract . Alvin H. Hansen was one of the leading American economists from the 1930s to the 1960s. He was largely responsible for the popularization of Keynesian economics in the United States and Canada. He was responsible for the development of the secular stagnation thesis which explained 19th century American economic growth in terms of population growth, the frontier, and technology. The diminishing of these factors explained the decrease in the American economic growth rate in the 20th Century. Hansen's policy conclusions to prevent stagnation were Keynesian in nature and, as a result, Hansen was an early advocate of active fiscal policy in the United States. He differed with Terborgh.     

What do we know about business strategy and environmental research? Insights from Business Strategy and the Environment

Business Strategy and the Environment (BSE) is a premier journal dedicated to interdisciplinary research that advances business practice leading to improvements in environmental performance. Using big data analytics, this review examines the intellectual structure and the drivers of research impact of BSE in the scholarly domain. The bibliometric results suggest three major findings. First, the top three countries contributing to BSE are the United Kingdom, the United States, and China. Second, BSE's research manifests through five thematic clusters, namely, business strategy and sustainability; corporate governance and sustainability reporting; green marketing and pro-environmental behavior; innovation and environmental policy; and environmental management systems. Finally, BSE's research impact in terms of citations is significantly influenced by author affiliation (United States); article age (older), appearance (lead article and special issue), length (longer), and method (mix methods); title length (shorter title); and number of keywords (more keywords) and references (more references). Implications for BSE's readers and future contributors are discussed.     

The demand for housing in developing countries: The case of Korea

This paper presents the results of an analysis of urban housing demand for Korea taking into account the most recent findings of housing demand analysis concerning specification and aggregation biases. In order to obtain correctly specified demand functions, a procedure based on a model of the housing market originally proposed by Muth is used. Drawing on the detailed land information available in Korea, this procedure permits the calculation of an individual price per unit of housing services for each household. The results show conclusively that both the income and price elasticity of the demand for housing services in Korea are comparable to those found in the United States: the income elasticity is smaller than one and the price elasticity is negative and smaller than one in absolute value. Given the number of countries found within the per capita income range between Korea ($700) and the United States ($7800), the finding that these two countries have comparable demand elasticities is of major significance: in the absence of good national estimates, the order of magnitudes found here would be used for other country analyses.     

The London Business School with Gower Publishing

Output has stagnated in the main industrialised countries this year but we expect the benefits of lower oil prices to show up in rapid growth from now on. The present weakness in the world economy stems from tighter US fiscal policy and the oil price shock itself. These have combined to reduce domestic demand in the United States, and hence to cut the market for Japanese exports in particular, and also to reduce expenditure by energydependent countries and companies. A further factor is that, with prices of oil-based products falling, there is an incentive to delay expenditure. We expect this impact effect of OPEC III to be short-lived and to give way to its positive effects in the second half of this year. Specifically, we expect consumer spending to lead the recovery as real incomes will be boosted by the terms of trade gain from lower oil prices - equivalent to 3 per cent of GNP in the OECD area as a whole. On the basis of oil prices holding at $15. we forecast OECD output growth of 3 per cent this year, rising to 41/2 per cent in 1987. Additionally, we expect lower oil prices to produce a significant reduction in world inflation. Zero growth of producer prices is forecast on average this year arid consumer price inflation is expected to fall to wards 2 per cent in the course of the year.     

America's New Era

In this article, Wynne Godley and Bill Martin examine the growing imbalances in the American economy and the threat they pose to continued growth. They argue that America's expansion has been, and, on present policies, will continue to be overly reliant on a rising stock market and falling private net saving. This process is unsustainable. Other countries which have experienced asset price bubbles and abnormally low and falling private saving have all been severely damaged when the process unwound with net savings rising back to and then above their historic norm. Faced with that type of shock, the same fate could easily await the United States unless its policy toward the dollar and the budget responded in a quite remarkable fashion.     

The Significance of the Living Wage for US Workers in the Early Twenty-First Century

This article provides an introduction to the importance of the living wage for low-wage workers in the United States. Described as a wage based on an estimation of the official poverty threshold for a family of four, the living wage, as an alternative to the minimum wage, is based on the notion that people working at full-time jobs, and their families, should not have to live in poverty. After discussing the emergence and growth of living wage campaigns in the United States, this essay discusses the coverage and provisions of living wage statutes, the economic effects of living wage ordinances as well as additional benefits provided to workers and unions from living wage statute implementation. The article concludes that due to the current economic conditions in the United States, the struggle to attain a living wage will become increasingly relevant in the coming years.     

Discrimination and Favoritism in the U.S. Labor Market: The Cost to a Wage Earner of Being Female and Black and the Benefit of Being Male and White

Abstract . The hypothesis that Black female wage earners face greater wage discrimination than their White female or Black male counterparts is supported by evidence derived from a version of a widely used method for decomposing wage differentials. This version allows one to measure both the “cost” of being a female or Black wage earner and the “benefit” of being a male or White wage earner. The approach yields a model which is validated by testing with Census Bureau samples (n_1,2,3,4= 23,800). The empirical test indicates that when skills are fairly comparable, the Black female earns an average wage nearly 21 percent lower than the White male average, whereas the White female's average was 15.5 percent lower. It suggests that being female has a relatively greater impact on Black female wages than being Black.     

The Wage Inflation‐Unemployment Curve at the Macroeconomic Level

Based on the reduced form New Keynesian Wage Phillips Curve, we estimate wage rigidity and indexation at the aggregate level in several advanced countries for the 1985–2014 period. We document that the wage setting process is heterogenous among our sample of countries: nominal wage rigidities are more important in the United States, while wage indexation is dominant in European Countries. We also present evidence that indexation to past inflation has decrease as inflation stabilizes at lower levels. In addition, our results suggest that wage rigidity is not linked to the institutional environment at the macroeconomic level. Finally, we show that there is significant time variation in the estimated coefficients on the implied equation that is usually not taken into account in the theoretical literature.     

Mineral-led Economic Growth, Drought Relief, and Incomes Policy

Abstract . Some analysts have hypothesized that rapid mineral led economic growth and drought in the rural economy have led to a severe worsening of the plight of the rural population in Botswana, with rural household income collapsing and income inequality worsening pronouncedly. Contrary to these hypotheses, Botswana's income data show that income distribution remained stable, since rural household incomes did not experience significant decline as a result of drought conditions. The government's incomes policy, the direct and indirect benefits of rapid employment growth, and the government's comprehensive drought relief support are seen as explanatory factors in this macroeconomic policy success.     

Corporate Power and Expansive U.S. Military Policy

Military defense is generally treated in economics texts as a “public good” because the benefits are presumed to be shared by all citizens. However, defense spending by the United States cannot legitimately be classified as a public good, since the primary purpose of those expenditures has been to project power in support of private business interests. Throughout the course of the 20^th century, U.S. military spending has been largely devoted to protecting the overseas assets of multinational corporations that are based in the United States or allied nations. Companies extracting oil, mineral ores, timber, and other raw materials are the primary beneficiaries. The U.S. military provides its services by supporting compliant political leaders in developing countries and by punishing or deposing regimes that threaten the interests of U.S.‐based corporations. The companies involved in this process generally have invested only a small amount of their own capital. Instead, the value of their overseas assets largely derives from the appreciation of oil and other raw materials in situ. Companies bought resource‐rich lands cheaply, as early as the 1930s or 1940s, and then waited for decades to develop them. In order to make a profit on this long‐range strategy, they formed cartels to limit global supply and relied on the U.S. military to help them maintain secure title over a period of decades. Those operations have required suppressing democratic impulses in dozens of nations. The global “sprawl” of extractive companies has been the catalyst of U.S. foreign policy for the past century. The U.S. Department of Defense provides a giant subsidy to companies operating overseas, and the cost is borne by the taxpayers of the United States, not by the corporate beneficiaries. Defining military spending as a “public good” has been a mistake with global ramifications, leading to patriotic support for imperialist behavior.     

Social dumping and relocation: is there a case for imposing a social clause?

Public opinion in Europe seems worried about the relocation of production plants toward low wage countries often accused of practicing ‘social dumping’. To reduce the incentives for relocation trade unions proposed the adoption of ‘social clauses’ protecting domestic markets from commodities produced in countries where minimal labor condition are not met. We analyze the effects of the adoption of a social clause in a vertically differentiated Bertrand duopoly. We assess how such a policy affects firms’ relocation decisions in order to be able to assess its welfare implications. We also characterize the optimal social clause policy, both under domestic welfare maximization, and from an efficiency point of view. While we show that a social clause policy cannot be dismissed on domestic (or world) welfare grounds, its case is weaker the higher is the domestic wage and the lower is the foreign wage.     

Measuring labor cost for productivity comparison

This paper presents measures of labor cost applicable when the wage and marginal product are not equal by period. The user cost of labor, an alternative to the wage, is the price of hiring the services of the worker per unit time. This user cost is dependent on the sequence of wages earned by a worker over a career, interest rates, and career length or eventual tenure. For the United States, 1963–1978, labor compensation shares based on the wage exceed those for the user cost. After 1978, the reverse obtains. The contribution of labor, and measured productivity performance is sensitive to the price of labor services.This paper was processed by M. Brown.     

Non-family-members in the family business management team: a multinational investigation

The purpose of this study was to investigate, in a multi-country context, the inclusion of family-member managers and non-family-member managers in family businesses, and the relationship of this variable to certain management activities, styles and characteristics. A large sample (N = 593) of family businesses was generated from six countries (Croatia, Egypt, France, India, Kuwait and the United States), countries with significant differences in cultures, economies, levels of entrepreneurial activity, and family business demographics. Correlation and then Regression results indicate that, as the percentage of non-family-managers in the management team increases, there is an increase in the use of outside assistance, the use of sophisticated financial management, and the consideration of going public; but a decrease in family member conflict, in the original founder’s influence, and in the formulation of succession plans. Implications of these findings, for practitioners, consultants and researchers, are presented.     

The Effect of Incomes Policies on Inflation in Bulgaria and Poland

Transition countries, and many other countries with incomplete markets, have faced long periods with both high inflation and unemployment. Policies to reduce inflation without high unemployment include incomes policies, which were widely employed in transition countries. This paper studies the effects of incomes policies on inflation in Bulgaria and Poland in 1990-1993. The actual policies, which were complex and changing, are examined. The policies do not appear well-designed in a technical sense to reduce inflation. A time-series analysis is made which includes standard determinants of inflation including past inflation, wage increases, exchange rate changes, and monetary changes, plus a dummy for incomes policies. The regressions are fairly successful in fitting standard factors that should influence inflation, particularly the exchange rate and unemployment in Bulgaria and wages and unemployment in Poland. They find a fairly substantial inflation-reducing effect from the Bulgarian policy but no significant results from the Polish policy. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Prices and Regional Variation in Welfare

One would expect regional differences in prices to influence conclusions concerning levels and distributions of well-being. Although there is anecdotal evidence of significant price dispersion across regions, there is no governmental source of data that measures differences in price levels. In this paper I integrate estimates of regional prices with expenditure data from the Consumer Expenditure Surveys to assess the influence of price differences on living standards in the United States. While prices have little effect on inequality, estimates of poverty and the standard of living change substantially with the inclusion of regional price variation.     

Are stock prices related to the political uncertainty index in OECD countries? Evidence from the bootstrap panel causality test

This study applies the bootstrap panel causality test proposed by Kónya (2006. Econ Modell 23, 978) to investigate the causal link between political uncertainty and stock prices for seven OECD countries over the monthly period of 2001.01 to 2013.04. This modeling approach allows us to examine both cross-sectional dependency and country-specific heterogeneity. Our empirical results indicate that not all the countries are alike and that the theoretical prediction that stock prices fall at the announcement of a policy change is not always supported. Specifically, we find evidence for the stock price leading hypothesis for Italy and Spain, while the political uncertainty leading hypothesis cannot be rejected for the United Kingdom and the United States. In addition, the neutrality hypothesis was supported in the remaining three countries (Canada, France and Germany), while no evidence for the feedback hypothesis was found.     

FREE TRADE, 'PAUPER LABOUR' AND PROSPERITY: A REPLY TO PROFESSOR MISHAN

In an Economic Viewpoint published in the September 2005 edition of Economic Affairs, ‘Can Globalisation Depress Living Standards in the West?’, Professor E. J. Mishan argued that globalisation may reduce living standards in the West by decreasing the labour–capital ratio in developed countries as firms move production to countries where labour is cheaper and/or migrants to the West from the developing world bid down wage rates. In a reply to Professor Mishan's article, Dr John Meadowcroft argues that this view of globalisation is far too pessimistic and explains why free trade, not protection, will secure the prosperity of developed and developing economies. In a final comment, Professor Mishan responds to this critique of his analysis.