An intertemporal analysis of the shifting of FHA discount points to buyers

In this paper, hedonic regressions are used to analyze a seven-year sample of monthly sales of bungalows in Chicago. Even when sales are considered within individual sections of Chicago, the FHA dummyindependent variable and the ‘points’-independent variable usually have negative coefficients. In certain areas of Chicago there is an absence of conventional loans and conventionally qualified buyers. Consequently, sellers in these neighborhoods must sell using FHA-insured mortgages and may be prevented from fully shifting points to the FHA buyer in the absence of competing financing alternatives. The use of FHA mortgages in these transactions means that the standard hedonic approach cannot correctly measure the extent of point-shifting because the housing/demographic characteristics decrease sales-prices at the same time the point-shifting increases them. The estimated FHA coefficients reflect the net result of these effects.     

A historiographical exhumation of J.A. Hobson's Over-Saving Thesis: General theory versus historiography

Abstract

The discussion of J.A. Hobson's understanding of over-saving has been largely confined within John Maynard Keynes' famous critique in the General Theory. I argue that gauging Hobson's contribution by ‘general theory’, that is, by an ahistorical, non-evolutionary yardstick, is to miss the larger part of Hobson's achievement. Hobson's conception of over-saving was contained within an evolving historiography of capital accumulation and took on various meanings depending on whether Hobson was discussing a competitive or monopolistic environment. I show that Keynes' ‘corrected’ version of over-saving was implicitly contained within Hobson's analysis of an evolving monopolistic industrial structure.     

Nutrition and signaling in slave markets: a new look at a puzzle within the antebellum puzzle

Between 1800 and 1860, mean adult stature of (U.S.) white males declined by nearly an inch, while real output grew substantially, creating the “Antebellum Puzzle.” In contrast, male slaves did not experience a comparable decrease in heights. To explain this puzzle within a puzzle, we show that the benefit of the marginal nutrient exceeded the cost throughout the antebellum era. As a result, it paid for slave owners to engage in the supplemental feeding of slaves, which increased their stature. While this is consistent with a productivity explanation of increased stature, we also argue that informational asymmetries played an important role in the market for slaves. Slave owners had an incentive to signal that their slaves were high-productivity laborers by supplying them with additional food, which positively impacted slave heights. We provide evidence that, distinct from a productivity explanation, signaling mattered in the trend of slave heights.     

Shared parent–child leisure time in four countries

The relative influences of resource and cultural differences on leisure behaviour and orientations in a pair of new towns, one in the United States (Reston) and the other in England (Telford) are compared. Three kinds of data were obtained: (a) the investigator lived in Telford for six weeks and participated in formal and informal leisure activities, supplementing observation with informal interviewing; (b) the planning department of Telford Development Corporation supplied materials on residents and their backgrounds, recreation provision and participation, and plans for the future; (c) the survey instrument used with 215 adults in the Reston study was revised and administered to 40 Telford adults.