Optimal fiscal zoning when the local government is a discriminating monopolist

Monopoly zoning by local governments has been studied extensively since the original article by White [1975, in: E. Mills and W. Oates, eds., Fiscal zoning and land use controls (Lexington Books, Lexington, MA)]. However, little or no attention has been paid to the possibility of monopolistic discrimination under such a regime. The question is: When will zoning multiple lot sizes be feasible given that buyers with different valuations of land cannot be coerced into purchasing particular lots? The literature on imperfect price discrimination by monopolists is brought to bear on this question. It is shown that the resulting zoning strategy may or may not involve multiple lot sizes. The factors determining the optimal strategy are studied in detail, with particular emphasis on the nature of the market for undeveloped land in the community.     

Random coefficient regression and the long-run phillips curve for the U.S.

This research suggests that a random coefficient regression model is well-suited for analyzing long-run versus short-run movements in wages and unemployment and is an improvement over some empirical techniques typically used.     

Institutionalism and New Trade Theory: Rethinking Comparative Advantage and Trade Policy

Gomory and Baumol (2000), and Samuelson (2004) have raised concerns about international trade’s future impact on U.S. national income. The focus is how globalization may affect the size and distribution across countries of gains from trade. Though their analysis is developed using a pure trade theoretical framework, it has strands in common with institutionalist thinking. Their findings spotlight the need for a new U.S. trade policy agenda aimed at maximizing the U.S. share of gains from trade, and complementing conventional Keynesian open economy macroeconomic analysis.     

Selecting Social Goals: J. M. Keynes and the Emergence of Ontological Rationality in Economics

In this paper we discuss the fundamental inconsistency that results from employing the two traditional concepts of rationality as the basis of selecting social goals. We then consider the possibility that the selection of social goals must be based on explicitly ethical criteria. To do so a third concept of rationality namely, ontological rationality, should be adopted. Moreover, we argue that J. M. Keynes in A Tract Monetary Reform based his public policy recommendations on a modified version of ontological rationality, thereby introducing ontological rationality into economics as the basis for selecting social goals.A previous version of this paper was presented at the Fifty-Eighth International Atlantic Economic Conference, October 7–10, 2004. The authors are grateful to session participants for their helpful suggestions, though the authors alone are responsible for the contents of the paper.     

Hierarchical Arrow Social Welfare Functions

Supported by SNF Grant No: DMS 8803556.     

Optimal foreign trade for the price-insensitive soviet-type economy

For a centrally planned economy in which the planners do not substitute among goods, either in production or consumption, in response to changes in relative prices, the short-run offer curve is in general backward-bending, and the planners will be indifferent as to whether the country is “small” or “large” in world markets as long as it faces an elastic foreign offer curve. The Soviet Union is found to have a backward-sloping offer curve in trade with the Western market economies. This suggests that systematic Soviet manipulation of this trade in order to earn monopoly profits is unlikely.