TRENDS IN RANKINGS OF ECONOMICS DEPARTMENTS IN THE U.S.: AN UPDATE

Economics departments in the U.S. are ranked based on (1) the number of pages published in thirty-six economics journals, (2) publications in five of the top journals, (3) output per faculty member, and (4) an index of the concentration of research in a department. Evidence shows that the top twenty departments have generally retained their positions since the 1970s, but rather large changes have occurred in departments ranked from 240 to 100. An "Economists Hall of Fame" is developed listing the top fifty individual producers of research in the thirty-six journal set and the top five journals.     

THE ROLE OF THE MEDIAN LEGISLATOR IN U.S. TRADE POLICY: A HISTORICAL ANALYSIS

In this historical analysis of U.S. trade policy, we apply the median voter model to explain legislative decision making. In this model, the level of tariff protection is expected to change with changes in the median legislator. We show that this simple model does a remarkable job if explaining trade policy until the mid-1930s, when it breaks down. We offer several possible explanations for the breakdown of this model, focusing particularly on the impact of domestic and international institutional changes that may have altered the role of the median legislator in trade policy formation.     

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CONTINUOUS CASTING IN THE U. S. STEEL INDUSTRY: COMMENT

In a recent article, Professor Ault has stated that:
studies of the steel industry during the fifties and early sixties have indicated that the major cause of the deterioration of the ability of the U.S. industry to compete was the failure of increases in the productivity of US. steel workers to keep pace with increases in the wages and benefits paid to those workers. One of the principal causes for this lag in productivity was the failure of major U.S. producers to adopt the Basic Oxygen Furnace as rapidly as major foreign producers…despite the fact that the Oxygen converter proved to be capable of producing basic steel products at lower unit cost than any other production technique.     

GEOGRAPHIC DIFFERENCES IN U.S. UNEMPLOYMENT RATES: A VARIANCE DECOMPOSITION APPROACH

This paper analyzes the determinants of the geographic dispersion of unemployment rates. The model presented here recognizes that structural labor market relationships differ across areas and that area unemployment rates and some of the explanatory variables are determined simultaneously. Most importantly, the methodology introduced here provides an estimate of the impact of each of the explanatory variables on the overall dispersion of unemployment rates, allowing comparison of several competing hypotheses that purport to explain why areas differ so widely in terms of their unemployment rates. The empirical results indicate that inter-area differences in product market demand and in sensitivity to changes in conditions in the product market are the most important factors accounting for geographic differences in unemployment rates. More generally, the results indicate that unemployment rates differ widely across areas not so much because areas differ in terms of the underlying characteristics that determine unemployment rates but because areas are so heterogeneous with respect to labor market structure.     

LOGROLLING IN THE U.S. CONGRESS

Does exchange, i.e., vote trading, occur in legislatures?!f so, is it quantitatively important or optimal? How important are political parties for the organization of logrolling coalitions? To address these questions, this paper investigates a broad range of votes where logrolling has been reported among interests favoring subsidies for urban, labor, and farm interests. The findings suggest that logrolling agreements are widespread, that many Democratic congressmen changed votes because of logrolling agreements, and that the Democratic party served to facilitate logrolling between its members. Furthermore, logrolling coalitions exhibited a strong degree if stability.     

STABILITY AND CHANGE IN THE U.S. PUBLIC'S KNOWLEDGE OF POLITICS

The U.S. public's current knowledge about politics is comparedwith levels of knowlege in the 1940s and 1950s. Fourteen questionsasked by Gallup on various surveys from 1945 to 1957 were includedon a larger survey of political knowledge conducted by telephonein 1989 with a randomly selected sample of 610 adult U.S. residents.On 8 of the 14 items, the percentage answering correctly in1989 was higher than in the earlier surveys (by 4–15 points).One item showed an increase of 1 percent, two were down 1 percent,and three others declined by 5 percent, 9 percent, and 10 percent.When level of education is controlled, however, levels of knowledgeappear to have declined for most of the items. A reanalysisof some of the original Gallup data is used to estimate theeffectiveness of schools in transmitting political informationin 1989 compared with the earlier years.     

DEMAND AND SUPPLY OF HOUSING IN THE U.S.: 1929–1978

Annual data for the period 1929–1978 are used to estimate a complete model of demand and supply of housing services and consumption goods in the U.S. by maximum likelihood methods. The demand functions are derived by maximizing a utility function characterized by weak inter-temporal separability. Utility in each period is assumed to be of a generalized CES type with housing services and consumption goods as arguments. The estimating demand relation is transformed into a relatively simple form by focusing on the relative demand of housing to consumption goods. It is found that the intra-temporal elasticity of substitution between housing and consumption goods is unitary. The maximum likelihood estimates of the other parameters of the elementary utility function are also presented. Finally, it is noted that by estimating the structure of individual preferences a basis is established for the calculation of long-run efficiency gains of a change in the tax treatment of housing.     

WOMEN CANDIDATES IN THE NEWS: AN EXAMINATION OF GENDER DIFFERENCES IN U.S. SENATE CAMPAIGN COVERAGE

By covering male and female candidates differently, the newsmedia may influence the success of female candidates for publicoffice. A content analysis was conducted to assess potentiallyimportant differences in the newspaper coverage of a sampleof male and female U.S. Senate candidates in the elections of1982–86. The results of the study show that female candidates for the U.S. Senate are treated differently by the press.Female candidates receive less news coverage and the coveragethey do receive concentrates more on their viability and lesson their issue positions. Furthermore, female candidates' viabilitycoverage is more negative than that of their male counterparts.Given these gender differences in press treatment, we wouldexpect voters' recognition of male candidates to exceed thatof female candidates and we would also expect evaluations offemale candidates to be tied more closely to their perceivedviabil ity. Because female candidates are often considered noncompetitiveby the press, this attention to the horserace may lead votersto develop more negative evaluations of female candidates. Theseresults suggest that current patterns of press coverage mayserve as a critical obstacle for women running for the U.S.Senate.     

MARKET STRUCTURE AND PRICE-COST MARGINS:A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF U.K. AND U.S. MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES

This paper reports a comparative study of market structure- performance relations in U. K. and U.S. manufacturing indus- tries. The multivariate regression results support the hypothesis of homogeneity of the links between market structure and the price-cost margin dimension of performance in manufacturing industries of the two countries. Furthermore, the results indicate that the differences in the legal and cultural environments of U.K. and U.S. industries do not significantly affect the pattern of similarity in the links.     

USE OF EXPERT RATINGS AS SAMPLING STRATA FOR A MORE COST-EFFECTIVE PROBABILITY SAMPLE OF A RARE POPULATION

We consider situations in which externally observable characteristics allow experts to quickly categorize individual households as likely or unlikely to contain a member of a rare target population. This classification can form the basis of disproportionate stratified sampling such that households classified as "unlikely" are sampled at a lower rate than those classified as "likely," thereby reducing screening costs. Design weights account for this approach and allow unbiased estimates for the target population.We demonstrate that with sensitivity and specificity of expert classification at least 70%, and ideally at least 80%, our approach can economically increase effective sample size for a rare population. We develop heuristics for implementing this approach and demonstrate that sensitivity drives design effects and screening costs whereas specificity only drives the latter. We demonstrate that the potential gains from this approach increase as the target population becomes rarer. We further show that for most applications, unlikely strata should be sampled at 1/6 to ? the rate of likely strata.This approach was applied to a survey of Cambodian immigrants in which the 82% of households rated "unlikely" were sampled at ? the rate as "likely" households, reducing screening from 9.4 to 4.0 approaches per complete. Sensitivity and specificity were 86% and 91% respectively. Weighted estimation had a design effect of 1.26 so screening costs per effective sample size were reduced 47%. We also note that in this instance, expert classification appeared to be uncorrelated with survey outcomes of interest among eligibles.     

PRODUCTIVITY PERFORMANCE OF U.S. TRUNK AND LOCAL SERVCE AIRLINES IN THE ERA OF DEREGULATION

The transition to deregulation of the U.S. air transport industry began in 1976. In this paper we measure total factor productivity growth of the airlines for the first five years of the transition (1976–1980) and compare the performance with that of the preceding years. We find that productivity growth accelerated from 2.8% per year to 5.1% per year. An analysis of covariance model with individual airlines as observations leads to the conclusion that for the trunk airlines nearly all of the acceleration can be explained by increases in output and load factor and decreases in the growth of capacity. For the local service airlines, however, less than half of the acceleration may be so-explained.     

A THEORY OF THE POLITICALLY OPTIMAL COMMODITY TAX

A theory of the politically optimal tax is developed where tax rates are endogenous and determined by forces in the political market. The theory is used to explain the levels of alcoholic beverage taxes between states in the United States. It is shown that these rates are influenced by the ownership structure existing in the liquor industry, the consumption externalities associated with drinking, the minimum drinking age laws, the earmarking of tax revenues, the enforcement of regulations and real income.