The Impact of Research and Development on Economic Growth and Productivity in the U.S. States

Research and development (R&D) has a large effect on both state output and total factor productivity in the long run. Our estimates for the private sector of the U.S. states from 1963 to 2007 show that the R&D elasticity averages 0.056–0.143. The implied returns to state Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from R&D spending are 82–211%. There are also positive R&D spillovers, with 70–80% of the total returns accruing to other states. We also find that states with more human capital have higher own‐ and other‐R&D elasticities, and those in lowest tier of economic development have the least own‐state R&D elasticity but the highest other‐R&D elasticity. In addition, we find that the positive effect of R&D spillovers across states is larger when we consider R&D spillovers across states based on economic similarity of R&D across sectors.     

The Political Economy of Industrial Policy in China: The Case of Aircraft Manufacturing

This paper focuses on China's efforts to build a world-class aircraft manufacturing industry. In the first half of the 1990s, the potential of the Chinese industry to mount a competitive challenge to Western aircraft builders was largely discounted. Nowadays, the threat is taken more seriously. The growth in the Chinese air transport market has reinforced the bargaining power of national aircraft producers and authorities are giving priority to building science and technology capacity in this area. Progress in creating military/civilian synergies has proven much more modest and the overall industry still lacks effective coordination.     

Seller Beware: Supply and Demand Reduction and Price Manipulation in Multiple‐Unit Uniform Price Auctions

We experimentally compare under‐revelation of supply and demand across alternative variations of ascending and descending two‐sided price clock auctions. We find that buyers reduce demand more when the price is ascending but sellers’ behavior is consistent across clock directions. As a result, the clock price rule has empirical effects on efficiency even though it is theoretically neutral.     

Forecasting U.S. car sales and car registrations in Japan: Rationality, accuracy and herding

We analyze forecasts of car sales in the U.S. and forecasts of car registrations in Japan. We document a substantial heterogeneity of forecasts, and we show that, based on traditional criteria, forecasts are neither rational nor unbiased. We also report that forecasters anti-herd, that is, forecasters seem to intentionally scatter their forecasts around a consensus forecast. We further show that cross-sectional heterogeneity of forecasts with regard to anti-herding transmits onto cross-sectional heterogeneity of forecast accuracy. Specifically, we document that forecasters who herd provide more accurate forecasts than their colleagues who anti-herd.     

Field Experiment Tests for Discrimination against Hispanics in the U.S. Rental Housing Market

This article tests for discrimination against Hispanics in the U.S. rental housing market using e‐mail correspondence with landlords advertising units online. We divide Hispanics into two groups: those that appear assimilated into American culture and recent immigrants. We find little difference in the treatment of assimilated Hispanics and whites; however, Hispanics we portray as recent immigrants receive less favorable treatment with margins of net discrimination as large as 6.89% of landlords. We also find discrimination varies significantly at the region level and by the ethnic composition of neighborhoods.     

The Impact of Passenger Mix on Reported “Hub Premiums” in the U.S. Airline Industry

This paper analyzes U.S. airline price and passenger data disaggregated at the fare class level for the year 2000. We find that although average prices to and from most airlines' hubs tend to be higher than those throughout the remainder of their systems, much of the difference can be explained by passenger mix (i.e., the proportion of leisure versus business passengers). Our results suggest, therefore, that many of the reported “hub premiums” in the previous literature may be overstated.     

Ranking U.S. Economics Programs by Faculty and Graduate Publications: An Update Using 1994–2009 Data

This article ranks academic institutions by pages published in top economics journals over the 1994–2001 and 2002–2009 periods. Because it uses a methodology similar to several earlier articles, this article permits a consideration of how institutions' ranks have changed over the past 35 years. I construct rankings based on publications by individuals affiliated with each institution, by faculty members in the economics departments at each institution, and by alumni of each doctoral program. With few exceptions, the positions of programs near the top of the rankings change little over time. However, much more dramatic changes in rank occur for lower‐ranked institutions.     

Entrepreneurship and business culture in Japan and the U.S.

It seems to me likely that entrepreneurship will take a different path in Japan than it has in the U.S. Given the prominence of large organizations in key areas of Japan's economy and the emphasis its society places on lifetime employment relationships, many of the “startups” of the sort that transformed the American business are more likely to happen within existing firms rather than as new enterprises. Such development, called “intrapreneurship” in the U.S. requires new institutional structures and rewards. Such changes will not come easily, because they run against the grain of Japanese society and business culture, yet I believe that success will come to those who can execute such strategies.     

Market and Welfare Effects of Mandatory Country‐of‐Origin Labeling in the U.S. Specialty Crops Sector: An Application to Fresh Market Apples

This study provides a new framework of analysis of the market and welfare effects of mandatory country‐of‐origin labeling (MCOOL) for fruits and vegetables that accounts for heterogeneous consumer preferences, differences in producer agronomic characteristics, and retailer market power. The market and welfare effects of MCOOL are shown to be case‐specific and dependent on the labeling costs at the farm and retail levels, the strength of consumer preference for domestic products, the market power of retailers, the marketing margin along the supply chain, and the relative costs of imported and domestic products. Simulation results for the U.S. market of fresh apples indicate that domestic producers are the most likely beneficiaries of MCOOL, followed by domestic consumers. Being unable to exercise market power on consumers or suppliers of fresh apples, retailers will lose if the implementation of MCOOL entails fixed costs. Imports of fresh apples decline after MCOOL introduction.     

美国对本国航空公司的扶持与管制政策及其启示

美国对于本国航空运输企业在政策法规、财政补贴和运营环境方面一直给予大力支持.同时,美国具有较完备的竞争法律体系,有力地防止了航空运输业中垄断和不正当竞争行为.美国对本国航空公司扶持政策和管制法规的并存与有效结合,对该国的航空运输业的发展起到了非常重要的作用.我国航空业正处于快速发展时期,有必要借鉴美国的经验,研究对航空公司扶持与管制政策的结合,促进我国民航业的健康发展.     

Separation of powers and the tax level in the U.S. states

We estimate a nonlinear and discontinuous relationship between the tax level and the degree of alignment between the legislature and the governor, measured as the number of seats in the legislature that belong to the governor's party. In the states with the line‐item veto, the tax level jumps at the point where the government switches from divided to unified. With a regression discontinuity design, we show that this jump can be interpreted as a causal effect. We propose a simple model to account for this nonlinear relationship. The sequential nature of the budget bargaining game, that is, the legislature proposes and the governor cuts with the line‐item veto, implies that the tax level is determined by the overlap between the supporters of the governor and the supporters of the legislative majority. Changes in the size of the overlap determine the tax level.     

Economic Fluctuations in the U.S. and Euro Area: Quantifying the Contribution of Technical Change

This article aims at quantifying the contribution of technical change to cyclical fluctuations in the U.S. and euro area. We distinguish technical progress in labor-augmenting and capital-augmenting change. To this end, we derive and estimate a New Keynesian DSGE model embodying a constant elasticity of substitution (CES) production function for both areas. Our main findings are: (i) capital-augmenting progress is the main source of technical change volatility; (ii) labor-augmenting shocks give a negligible contribution to the variance of output; (iii) technical change (of both types) explains more economic fluctuations in the U.S. than in the euro area; and (iv) historical decomposition of GDP growth over our sample period (1980–2008) shows that capital-augmenting progress is one of the key drivers of the business cycle.     

美国对药品专利技术政策国际协调的回应策略

《TRIPs协议修正案》的出台标志着药品专利技术政策国际协调的新成果。作为一种回应措施,美国纷纷签署一些自由贸易协定。这些协定未能重申药品专利政策国际协调成果中的重要原则和标准,扩大可专利种类和范围,明确否认《修正案》平行进口,限制《修正案》强制许可制度和措施,增加许多新条款应对《修正案》,延长专利期限。     

Institutional Pressures to Provide Social Benefits and the Earnings Management Behavior of Nonprofits: Evidence from the U.S. Hospital Industry

This study examines the relationship between institutional pressures to provide social benefits and the discretionary accrual behavior of nonprofit firms. I examine this issue within the context of U.S. nonprofit hospitals, an economically significant and politically rich setting where firms face considerable institutional pressure to provide an important social benefit: charity care. I argue that institutional pressures on nonprofits to provide higher levels of social benefits imply that lower profits should be reported. I develop theory and provide evidence which suggests that, due to competing private incentives to report higher profits, nonprofit managers strategically use discretionary accruals to increase accounting earnings when the social benefits their firms have provided in the current period exceed external stakeholders' normative expectations. The findings from this study inform the ongoing political debate regarding the appropriateness of tax exemptions for U.S. nonprofit hospitals and should therefore be of interest to both regulators and policymakers. In addition, this study provides timely insights for researchers regarding how institutional pressures can affect managers' reporting behaviors in other settings where similar competing reporting incentives exist between managers' private benefits and stakeholder expectations related to social benefits.     

The Effect of the Tipped Minimum Wage on Employees in the U.S. Restaurant Industry

According to federal law in 2013, employers can take a credit of up to $5.12 for tips received by workers in satisfying the minimum‐wage requirement of $7.25. This article uses interstate variation in laws regarding tip credits and minimum wages to identify the effects of reducing or eliminating the tip credit on employment, hours, and earnings in the U.S. restaurant industry. Using data from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages and the Current Population Survey, we find that a reduction in the tip credit increases weekly earnings but reduces employment in the full‐service restaurant industry and for tipped workers. The results are robust to controls for spatial heterogeneity in employment trends and are supported by a series of falsification tests.     

To Spend the U.S. Government Surplus or to Increase the Deficit? A Numerical Analysis of the Policy Options

This paper provides a numerical analysis of the likely benefits from adopting alternative ways of reducing the projected fiscal surplus (as of the summer 2001) in the United States economy. Calibrating a small growth model, our results suggest that investing the surplus in public capital is likely to yield the greatest long-run welfare gains, although decreasing the capital income tax is only marginally inferior. Both these options dominate increasing government consumption expenditure or decreasing the tax on labor income. By shifting resources from consumption toward capital the two superior policies involve sharp intertemporal tradeoffs in welfare; significant short-run welfare losses are more than compensated by large long-run welfare gains. By contrast, the two inferior options are gradually welfare-improving through time. A crucial factor in determining the benefits of reducing the government surplus through spending is the size of the government sector relative to the social optimum. We find that the second-best optimum is to increase both forms of government expenditure to their respective social optima, while at the same time restructuring taxes by reducing the tax on capital and raising the tax on wage income to achieve the targeted reduction in the surplus. J. Japan. Int. Econ., December 2002, 16(4), pp. 405–435. Department of Economics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington; and Department of Economics, Terry College of Business, University of Georgia, Atlanta, Georgia. © 2002 Elsevier Science (USA).Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: E62, O41.     

美国对主权基金投资银行业的法律监管

资金总量约在2万亿至3万亿美元的主权基金对美国银行业具有巨大吸引力。尽管出现一些松动的迹象,美国对主权基金投资银行业的法律监管依旧严格。中国应当采取相应的对策以确保中国的主权基金在投资美国银行业时享受合情、合法、合理的待遇。     

Entrepreneurial Planning in a Regulated Environment: the U.S. Federal Maritime Commission and the Maritime Industry

Entrepreneurs exploit market opportunities and innovate to achieve or maintain strategic advantage over their competitors. In the absence of government regulation, entrepreneurs are free to focus on improving satisfaction of customer wants, for example, by enhancing current goods, supplying new goods, or supplying established goods at lower cost. In a regulated market, entrepreneurs focus on satisfying regulatory authorities, for example, to earn rate increases, subsidies, or tax benefits. Economists normally conceptualize regulation as restricting entrepreneurial choice over prices charged, including general prohibitions against price discrimination, or as imposing additional costs on business enterprises through mandating actions entrepreneurial planners would not otherwise have chosen, or prohibiting actions which would have been freely chosen. This paper examines the role of a specific regulatory agency, the Federal Maritime Commission, and its regulatory oversight of the maritime shipping sector. Business strategy and public policy implications will be developed, as well as implications for the growth and development of the shipping industry. The history and nature of government intervention in the maritime sector will be reviewed. The presence of a regulatory authority at least partly substitutes a kind of bureaucratic sovereignty over the consumer sovereignty of an unregulated market. Regulated firms compete for favors from the regulatory authority, and in a regulated environment strategic advantage is directed away from entrepreneurial planners to political entrepreneurs.

美国金融防火墙制度演变及其对我国的启示

本文对金融防火墙的含义、具体作用及其在美国的发展演变等进行了全面的分析。我国未来金融业的混业经营将采取控股公司这一组织模式,因此借鉴美国金融防火墙的经验,制定科学合理的金融控股公司监管措施,对于实现我国金融业经营模式的稳步转型具有重要意义。     

Firm Efficiency in Cambodia's Garment Industry on the Eve of the Multi‐Fiber Arrangement Termination

Applying a frontier analysis to 2004 firm‐level data, the present paper investigates firm efficiency and its determinants for Cambodia's garment industry. The study finds that firm experience and remuneration are crucial for improving scale efficiency and overall technical efficiency, while effective use of capital and adequate labor‐skill development are important for enhancing a firm's technical capabilities. Foreign‐owned enterprises with a relatively larger share of foreign labor outperform local firms. However, the present study does not reveal evidence of any advantages of a cluster‐type concentration in Phnom Penh and export markets, nor of any positive impacts of product specialization. The findings imply a need to support skill development for workers and local managers at the middle management level, and to streamline foreign direct investment measures to attract greater numbers of efficient foreign enterprises, so as to promote the development of the garment industry as a whole.