Peak load pricing with spatial diffusion

The demand for public utility service varies not only temporally but spatially as well. The analysis of the problem of meeting these variations in system load with optimum plant capacity within the framework of a price determination structure is the objective of this paper. No simple cost-based solution proves possible. The solution presented, under a social welfare-maximization criterion, is similar to the joint product pricing discussed by Marshall. The characteristics of peak load pricing developed apply to the profit-maximizing firm as well as to the welfare-maximizing firm. With a profit-maximization objective, price will exceed rather than equal marginal cost. When regulation is imposed, whatever its form, normally there will be a price reduction as the output of the firm is moved closer to the welfare-maximizing level.     

The distribution of changes in manufacturing employment and the impact of the minimum wage

That employment for workers in durable goods industries is more sensitive to the pace of economic activity than for non-durable goods employees is not a surprising result. What is noteworthy about the conclusions of this study, however, is the manner in which increases in the minimum wage have altered the distribution of employment and sensitivity to short-run changes in employment of production workers in manufacturing industries. By focusing on the distribution of employment and how that distribution changes over the cycle, estimates of some aspects of the impact of the minimum wage that have not previously been analyzed have been developed.The evidence indicates that increases in the minimum wage over the period 1947–1975 have had a significant impact on employment patterns. Minimum wage legislation has had the effect of decreasing the share of projected employment and increasing vulnerability to cyclical changes in employment for the group of workers most ‘marginal’ to the work force low-wage industry employees. Hence, as a result of increased minimum wages, low-wage industry employees are able to obtain fewer jobs during periods of normal employment growth and their jobs are less secure in the face of short-run employment variations.Minimum wage legislation has undoubtedly resulted in higher wages for some of the relatively-low-productivity workers who were able to obtain employment than these workers would have received in its absence. The cost in terms of lost employment opportunities and cyclical vulnerability of jobs, however, has apparently been borne most heavily by low-wage industry employees. The primary beneficiaries of the shifts in the pattern of employment shares occasioned by minimum wage increases were high-wage industry workers, particularly in the ordnance, food, tobacco, and petroleum industries.     

Regional forecasting of the demand for fossil fuels by electric utilities in the United States

The possibility of interfuel substitution in the generation of electrical energy exists. Given this fact, a demand model for various fossil fuels by electric utilities in the United States is developed. Using regional data, the results suggest that the responsiveness of the demand for coal, residual fuel oil, distillate fuel oil, and natural gas by electric utilities to relative price changes is significant. In a forecasting setting, the demand model performs remarkably well when actual and forecast values for 1979 are compared.     

On the non-optimality of auctions—The case of profit sharing

Conclusion In this paper we have shown that a PSA in a competitive environment can result in a non-optimal allocation. A sufficient condition for the optimality of the PSA is that the owner gets an income, in a form of a lump sum payment only, and the operator collects all the variable profits which result from his activity. This conclusion suggests that an agent should act as an independent entity and obtain his full marginal product.An alternative suggestion is that, the division of ownership take the form of a FPSA. In other words, the partnership between the owner and the operator will be in a form of stock-ownership.     

Are the markets for financial assets efficient? : Evidence for the USA, 1974–1988

The analysis in this paper addresses the efficient markets hypothesis as it pertains to the markets for financial assets. Both weak form efficiency and semistrong form efficiency are investigated for three different financial assets - common stocks, preferred stocks and government bonds. For these assets the markets are indicated to be weak form efficient based on monthly data covering the period January 1974 to June 1988. In the case of semistrong form efficiency, the financial assets markets are efficient with respect to the supply of money for the period after October 1979 but not before. This anomaly is attributed to the different procedures used by the Federal Open Market Committee between the two periods for controlling the growth rate of the money supply.     

The Search for a Critical Concentration Revisited

This paper examines the issue of whether there is a four-firm critical concentration ratio above which industries earn supranormal profits. A statistical test is employed to investigate the functional stability of the estimated relationship. Although the initial results indicate a range in the concentration ratio of between 0.48 and 0.55 over which the functional relationship destabilizes, additional analysis fails to identify a clear break in the concentration-profitability relationship. It can only be concluded that a critical concentration does not appear to exist.     

RETESTING THE UNCERTAINTY EFFECT USING LOTTERIES WITH REAL PRODUCTS AND MONEY

In the current study, several experiments re‐examine the uncertainty effect using lotteries that include real products, monetary outcomes and electronic gift cards in a between‐subjects design. The study also takes the selling position into consideration, in addition to the buying position considered by all previous works on the uncertainty effect. The results indicate that for all types of lotteries, the bids are higher than the bids for the worst possible realization. These findings are consistent with the internality axiom and do not support the uncertainty effect.     

Taxation,inflation, and the terms of trade

The interaction between changes in the rate of inflation and tax systems can have potential terms of trade effects. An open-economy macroeconomic model is presented in which such effects are analyzed. The asset menu consists of money, corporate capital whose nominal income is subject to taxation, and consumer durables whose return is tax exempt. This may be contrasted with the conventional menu of money and capital and/or bonds. Durables are imported. An increase in the rate of inflation then implies that the terms of trade of the country in question deteriorates in the long run.     

Exports as a signal of quality: A new approach to dumping

Dumping, namely selling abroad at a price below the marginal cost of production, is the result of the monopolist's profit maximizing behavior. This result is obtained when the firm takes into account the informative role played by exports in the domestic market. The level of exports serves as a signal of the quality of the new product.