Robert Torrens and the Ricardian model of dynamic equilibrium growth

This paper reconstructs Torrens's dynamic theory of distribution which is based on three notions of wages. In the early stages of growth, capital increases faster than population, so the actual wage rises above the minimum. Thereafter, the economy grows with a tendency for the population to increase faster than the capital while limiting the actual wage below the decreasing maximum until it enters a stationary state and the actual wage and profit rates are reduced to their minimum. Such a theory has been attributed to Ricardo by some scholars, but Torrens proposed a more fully developed account than Ricardo's.     

A review essay on The European Guilds

The Review of Austrian Economics - Ogilvie’s The European Guilds is a major contribution to economic history and institutional economics. This review essay surveys the main contributions of...     

Income Tax Reforms and Redistribution by Age Group: Evidence From Japan

In the 1980s, tax policy changes mitigated the redistributive effect of income tax. The present study attempts to explore how different the redistributive effect of the income tax reforms in Japan is among age groups, using Japanese household microdata for the period 1984–2009. The following results are obtained. First, the overall redistributive effect was greatest for the elderly group, followed by the middle‐aged group, and then the young group. Furthermore, this trend increased steadily over time. Second, the difference in total redistributive effects between the young and elderly increased owing to a large reduction in the base effect for the young.     

Do hard pegs avoid currency crises? An evaluation using matching estimators

Using the bias-corrected matching estimators of Abadie and Imbens (2006) as a control for the self-selection problem of regime adoption, we estimate the average treatment effect of hard pegs on the occurrence of currency crises. We find the evidence that hard pegs significantly decrease the likelihood of currency crises compared with other regimes.     

Evading the ‘Taint of Usury’: The usury prohibition as a barrier to entry

The development of capital markets in medieval Europe was shaped for centuries by the religious ban on lending money at interest. This paper examines how this prohibition developed as the outcome of strategic behavior by religious, commercial and political elites. A model is developed to analyze this hypothesis and to examine how the usury prohibition developed over time. It suggests that an important reason for the persistence of the ban was that it created a barrier to entry that enabled secular rulers, the Church, and a small number of merchant-bankers to earn monopoly rents.     

为非洲不断发展的消费市场挑选产品

非洲消费者阶层的迅速扩大应该使企业有理由考虑进入这一过去曾被许多企业回避的地区。     

Exchange rate regimes,capital controls,and currency crises: Does the bipolar view hold?

This paper empirically examines the link between de facto exchange rate regimes and the incidence of currency crises in 84 countries from 1980 to 2001 using probit models. We employ the de facto classification of Reinhart and Rogoff (2004) that allows us to estimate the impact of relatively long-lived exchange rate regimes on currency crises with much greater precision. We find no evidence that, as the bipolar view argues, intermediate regimes have a significantly higher probability of currency crises than both hard pegs and free floats. Using the combined data of exchange rate regimes and the existence of capital controls, we also find that hard pegs with capital account liberalization have a significantly lower probability of currency crises than intermediate regimes with capital controls and free floats with capital controls. Hence, the bipolar view does not strictly hold in the sense that intermediate regimes are significantly more prone to currency crises than the two extreme regimes. However, the fact that hard pegs with capital account liberalization are substantially less prone to currency crises is worthy of note.     

Iterative method for exponentially weighted rolling regression

This note proposes an iterative method for exponentially weighted rolling regression (EWRR), which was proved to be an optimal estimator of volatility by Foster and Nelson [Econometrica 64 (1996)]. The method accelerates the numerical evaluation of EWRR under certain circumstances. An alternative to usual realized volatility is proposed for its application.     

Activity of a 'Soft Science Group' in Mitsubishi Electric Corp.

‘Soft Science’ is defined by the Science and Technology Agency of the Japanese Government as a new methodology to forecast, plan. control and evaluate. This paper describes the activities of the Soft Science Group (SSG) which has been established in the Mitsubishi Electric Corporation. SSG presently consists of 13 members and has issued in excess of 300 reports in 5 years. Its basic activities are concerned with setting new research themes, information exchange meetings, and work on specific projects involving also engineers seconded from operating divisions. The paper summarizes these activities and presents a case example of planning a new product which has already been developed and commercialized.