VALUATION OF HOUSEHOLD PRODUCTION AT MARKET PRICES AND ESTIMATION OF PRODUCTION FUNCTIONS

This paper estimates household production functions directly, considers their characteristics, and compares them with previous indirectly estimated functions. Interviews with 135 Missoula, Montana area married couple households provided the data. The results suggest that endogeneity and a previous lack of output and capital data which led to the use of the indirect methodology are not insurmountable problems. The results tend to confirm the feasibility of directly measuring household outputs since the production function results are reasonable. Directly estimated household production functions offer the possibilities for estimation of short-term household output changes and testing hypotheses about households' economic behavior.     

PRICES OF SLAVES IN WEST AND WEST-CENTRAL AFRICA: TOWARD AN ANNUAL SERIES, 1698–1807

Currently available price series for slaves during the eighteenth century need to be treated with much caution, and it seems unlikely that large quantities of new evidence will be unearthed. Further progress toward the creation of more reliable price series will thus require new methods of estimation. In this paper, a new price series for slaves at the African coast is calculated using data relating to the number of slaves shipped from the coast by British traders and the value of trade goods bartered for them.     

A PBOBLEM IN PRICES AND QUANTITIES

"Most of us were brought up to employ such index numbers as Sauerbeck's… much too lightheartedly, and without sufficient warning that… the actual divergences between these indexes and the Purchasing Power of Money might prove to be, if we could calculate them, of very great significance both theoretical and practical."     

RISKY PRODUCTION WITH EX-ANTE PRICES UNDER MONOPOLY ANALYTICAL AND SIMULATION RESULTS

This paper concerns the case of a monopolist facing multiplicative uncertainty in demand. Karlin and Carr (1962), henceforth KC, show that, when price and production are both chosen ex ante , the uncertainty price exceeds the certainty price. They also give a sufficient condition under which the firm locates above the certainty demand curve, but they do not consider the effect on the output level. In this note we replicate the KC results and then go further. In the special case that the price elasticity of certainty demand is constant, and the probability distribution for the uncertainty parameter in the demand function is uniform, output is unambiguously lower under uncertainty, and KC's condition for the firm to locate above the certainty demand curve can be strengthened to one that is both necessary and sufficient. The robustness of these results is tested under less stringent assumptions on demand, abandoning symmetry for a lognormal distribution of the uncertainty parameter. Simulation confirms that the results hold up, and also determines the effects upon the firm's decisions of an increase in demand uncertainty.     

INTERNATIONAL AVERAGE PRICES AND COMPARISONS OF NATIONAL AGGREGATE PRODUCTION OF AGRICULTURE

"The whole question of making inter-spatial comparisons between countries is a most complicated and hazardous business" (Mr. Campion); international comparisons of a particular value aggregate between countries present a difficult problem connected with the conversion of national value aggregates into a comparable magnitude. This paper presents an alternative approach in that an internationally comparable value aggregate for each country is prepared by the international average prices of commodities which are determined simultaneously with the partial exchange rates of national currencies to a standard currency. The calculated partial exchange rates are so defined as to reflect the purchasing power of national currencies in respect of the group of commodities selected. Consequently, the resulting value aggregate for international comparison has a quantity dimension, eliminating the effect due to the different purchasing power of national currencies in which original prices are quoted. The other methods of international comparison so far being used by other research workers, such as C. Clerk and M. Gilbert and his associates, are examined in the light of the properties of the present method and the crucial differences are delineated. Using the method proposed, an international comparison is made of the aggregate value of agricultural products for 11 selected countries in the world, with sub-divisions into two regions.     

PRIVATISATION,COMPETITION AND REGULATION IN THE SCOTTISH ELECTRICITY INDUSTRY†

This paper analyses the experience of the privatised electricity industry in Scotland. The retention of vertical integration in Scotland has led to a number of different features in the regulation of the industry in Scotland and England and Wales. It has also led to a different pattern of development of competition. Although regulation and price competition appear to have operated to the benefit of consumers thus far, the Scottish system is as yet untested in its ability to cope with significant new entry.     

REVISED REAL CANADIAN GNP ESTIMATES AND CANADIAN ECONOMIC GROWTH, 1870–1926

Revised Canadian real GNP estimates for the 1870–1926 period, based on the nominal GNP estimates constructed by M. C. Urquhart and on a variety of sector-specific price indexes, are presented below. The construction of this revised real GNP series allows for the creation of real output estimates for the major sectors of the Canadian economy as well as for a new implicit price index series. These revised estimates cast new light on our present understanding of Canadian economic growth and reinforce the view that the Canadian wheat boom probably played an important and positive role in the process of Canadian economic development.     

TECHNOLOGICAL EPOCHS AND BRITISH INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION, 1700–1992

This paper presents results on the persistence of British industrial production using the Cochrane (1988) measure, based upon the spectral density at zero frequency, and an extended version of the Crafts-Harley (1992) data set. Utilising results on the timing of macroeconomic epochs, consideration is given to the effects of structural breaks on measures of persistence. In addition the variance composition of production is analysed via consideration of the cycle period. The results show high persistence during the Industrial Revolution and lower levels of persistence experienced during the twentieth century. The problems of ignoring structural breaks when claculating measures of persistence are highlighted and used to explain the results of some previous studies.