Speed of adjustment of the current account: an international comparison

A model of the current account using a mean-reverting Ornstein–Uhlenbeck process is developed and tested for three different measures of the current account. The results show very different adjustment patterns for the current accounts of seven large develpoed countries. This information can be very useful for further detailed analysis of behavior within these individual countries. We find that with the exception of Canada and Japan all countries have a constant long-term mean which, in most cases, was not significantly different from zero. The speed of adjustment to the mean was always between 0 and 1. France and Italy exhibited much more rapid adjustment patterns than did the other five countries.     

The Transformation of American Law, 1780–1860

It is commonly believed that New Institutional Economics, particularly the theoretical innovations of Douglass North over the past 20 years and more, has lent scientific legitimacy to economic history. Yet, North is a prisoner of a very peculiar conception of historical development which is no more scientific than rival theories. Two particular aspects of his work underline this point. First, his presentation of class struggles and institutions as contractual relations, understood in economic terms, is highly questionable. Second, it remains to be seen whether or not his recent acceptance of the relevance of ideology is convincing: his account of Soviet stagnation and the crises of Muslim societies leads him into an idealist or culturalist deadlock.     

Reminiscing about Gordon Tullock

Some thoughts about my year with Gordon Tullock and his intellectual contributions,notably rent-seeking.