Method in Experiment: Rhetoric and Reality

The methodological ideal of experimentalists, E, is easily stated: derive a testable hypothesis, H, from a well-specified theory, T; implement experiments with a design; implicitly in the latter are auxiliary hypotheses, A, that surface in the review/discussion of completed research reports (payoffs are 'adequate,' Ss are 'relevant,' instructions, context are 'clear,' etc.). We want to be able to conclude, if statistical test outcomes support not-H, that T is 'falsified.' But this is not what we do; rather we ask if there is a flaw in the test, i.e. not-A is supported, and we do more experiments. This is good practice—much better than the statistical rhetoric of falsificationism. Undesigned social processes allow E to accumulate technical and instrumental knowledge that drive the reduction of experimental error and constitute a more coherent methodology than falsificationism.     

Recovering Hicksian Consumer Surplus within a Collective Model: Hausman's Method for the Household

The purpose of this paper is to describe the implications of the collective model of household behavior for the methods used to estimate the economic value of non-marketed environmental resources. After demonstrating how the separability restrictions inherent in the collective model allow individual preference and household income allocation choices to be distinguished, the paper demonstrates how the framework can be used to recover Hicksian consumer surplus. An algebraic example is used to illustrate how the framework can be used in valuing environmental resources.     

A theory of natural addiction

Economic theories of rational addiction aim to describe consumer behavior in the presence of habit-forming goods. We provide a biological foundation for this body of work by formally specifying conditions under which it is optimal to form a habit. We demonstrate the empirical validity of our thesis with an in-depth review and synthesis of the biomedical literature concerning the action of opiates in the mammalian brain and their effects on behavior. Our results lend credence to many of the unconventional behavioral assumptions employed by theories of rational addiction, including adjacent complementarity and the importance of cues, attention, and self-control in determining the behavior of addicts. We offer evidence for the special case of the opiates that “harmful” addiction is the manifestation of a mismatch between behavioral algorithms encoded in the human genome and the expanded menu of choices faced by consumers in the modern world.     

OPPORTUNISTIC MATCHING IN THE HOUSING MARKET*

We construct a model of the housing market in which agents differ in their flow values while searching. Agents enter the market relaxed (with high flow values) but move to a desperate state (low flow values) at a Poisson rate if they have not already transacted. We characterize the equilibrium steady‐state matching pattern and the joint distribution of price and time to sale (for sellers). The expected price conditional on time to sale falls with time spent on the market, whereas the conditional variance of price first rises and then falls with time on the market.     

Editorial

Editorial Introduction

Editorial     

Crafting a public image: An empirical study of the ethics of ghostwriting

Ghostwriting is viewed by some as a necessary element for crafting an effective public image. Defenders of ghostwriting see no ethical dilemma in the practice because the audience knows the speechgiver is not necessarily the speechwriter. Alernatively, those regarding ghostwriting as unethical view the practice as deceitful. This group argues that the audience does not recognize the employment of a speechwriter and thus a speechgiver relies on the words of another to fortify personal ethos. This article examines several positions regarding the ethics of ghostwriting and discusses an empirical study testing three major positions found in ghostwriting literature. Findings from the study indicate that respondents do recognize the use of speechwriters by certain individuals in certain circumstances.Linda A. Riley is a College Associate Professor in the Department of Marketing, College of Business Administration and Economics at New Mexico State University. She also serves as the Director of the Center for Economic Development Research and Assistance in the College of Business Administration and Economics.Stuart C. Brown is Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Professional Communication in the English Department at New Mexico State University.     

Ethical reflection and service internships

To achieve the goals of ethics education, students must have oportunities to develop both moral capacities (imagination, responsibility, and perseverance) and intellectual capacities (critical thinking). This article contends that service-based learning represents an important opportunity for integrative ethics education. It describes a program of leadership internships at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois, in which faculty members conduct a for-credit reflection seminar with students involved in service internships. The seminar is based upon student-written cases about ethical issues they face in their work settings.David C. Smith is Executive Vice President of the Council for Ethics in Economics, an association of leaders in busienss and the professions dedicated to strengthening the ethical fabric of business and economic life. Prior to joining the Council in August, 1994, he was Director of the campus-wide Leadership, Ethics, and Values Program at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois.     

Can Oxford heal itself?

The fast-growing HMO was hammered on Wall Street after revealing its massive computer problems. Those foul-ups are being fixed, but now comes the hard part--reclaiming the trust of stunned shareholders and outraged doctors.     

Demographic change and income inequality in the United States, 1976-1989

"The U.S. economy experienced significant increases in the degree of income inequality over the past two decades.... In this paper we consider the effects of race, age, female headship, and college education on the distribution of family income by developing a multivariate methodology that allows us to gauge the influence of one factor while holding other determinants of family incomes constant. Over the period studied we find that race had only a minor effect on the overall size distribution of income. Age had a somewhat greater effect than race. In contrast, the impact of female heads and college education were quite substantial. The multivariate estimates reveal that the effects of female heads and college education both increase the Gini to a much greater extent than the progressivity of federal income taxes decreases it. The effects of college education and female headed families on inequality have grown larger across time, while the influence of age has declined. We find that the effects of race on inequality have changed little over the 1976 to 1989 period."