EVIDENCE ON PRICE ADJUSTMENT COSTS IN U.S. MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY

This paper investigates the degree of rigidity in prices of manufactured products in the U.S., conditional on labor costs. I extend Rotemberg's model of quadratic price-adjustment costs and find that prices are costly to adjust: after a year, about 40 percent of adjustment remains to be completed for aggregate manufacturing, while for some industries the adjustment is twice as slow. But manufacturing prices are less sluggish than prices in the U.S. economy as a whole. Thus, nominal rigidity in other markets, such as those for services or labor, may be important.     

BLACK ATTITUDES AND THE 1960s BLACK RIOTS:

Nearly all aggregate-level studies of political violence use objective indicators to assess an aggrieved group's dissatisfactions and deprivations. Critics of this research often note that there are no necessary connections between perceived grievances and their objective counterparts. Moreover, even if such correlations do exist, detractors contend there is no inherent relation between felt grievances and participation in—or support of—collective violent protest. The 1968 Kerner Commission's 15-Cities Study provides a unique set of data to test both of these objections. Correlational analyses of aggregated subjective reports of black grievances and their objective counterparts reveal a weak relation; however, such reports do not correlate with riot activity in directions that would be predicted by conventional wisdom or much of current social science theory.     

TAXES AND EXPENDITURES IN THE U.S.: PUBLIC OPINION SURVEYS AND INCIDENCE ANALYSIS COMPARED

The usefulness of surveys for eliciting fiscal opinions of voters is investigated. Using data from the U.S. Advisory Commission in Intergovernmental Relations annual surveys of attitude toward government and taxes, the survey responses are related to economic and political factors and the survey results compared to those predicted by incidence analysis. The results from this analysis and a review of previous studies of this type suggest that there is often no consistent economic foundation for answers to fiscal survey questions. It also appears that some standard survey questions are too general to produce precise estimates of the factors influencing responses.     

SAME-GENDER SEX AMONG U.S. ADULTS: TRENDS ACROSS THE TWENTIETH CENTURY AND DURING THE 1990s

Trends in reporting of same-gender sex are assessed using datafrom the 1998–2002 General Social Surveys (Ns = 9,487males and 12,336 females). Analyses indicate that the reportedprevalence of female-female sexual contact increased substantiallyand monotonically across twentieth-century birth cohorts, risingfrom 1.6 percent (Standard error [SE] = 0.60) for the cohortof U.S. women born prior to 1920 to 6.9 percent (SE = 0.81)for women born in 1970 and afterward. Increases in the reportedprevalence of female-female contacts also occurred within the1990s. These trends persist when statistical controls are introducedfor changes in attitudes toward same-gender sexual behavior.No parallel trend is observed in the reporting of male-malesexual contacts during adulthood, although the proportion ofU.S. men reporting such contacts in the past year and in thepast five years increased during the 1990s.     

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.     

TRADE,GEOGRAPHY AND THE SKILL PREMIUM IN U.S. MANUFACTURING

A number of studies have suggested that countries (or regions) with access to larger markets have higher wages. In this paper, we examine whether access to larger markets affects skilled and unskilled workers differently. We develop a model relating two key measures of market size, market and supplier access, to industry value added prices. We then estimate the effects of growth in these measures on factor returns in U.S. manufacturing industries between 1984 and 1996. We find that growth in these measures can explain around 5% of the rise in the skill premium over the sample period. (JEL F12, F16, L60)     

MULTIREGIONAL FIRMS AND REGION SWITCHING IN THE U.S. MANUFACTURING SECTOR

I use data on U.S. manufacturing establishments to study the spatial reallocation of resources that takes place within surviving firms as they open and close establishments in different regions. To motivate the empirical analysis, I extend existing models of industry dynamics to include production‐location decisions within firms. Consistent with the theory, the empirical results show that only a fraction of firms make the same product in multiple regions, that multiregional firms are larger and more productive on average compared to single‐region firms, and that “region switching” is pervasive among multiregional firms and correlated with changes in firm and firm‐region characteristics. (JEL L2, F12, F23)     

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.     

U.S. MILITARY EXPENDITURE AND THE DOLLAR

This paper examines the connection between U.S. military expenditure and the dollar-mark real exchange rate. Quarterly data for the period 1951.1–1986.3 are used to show that there exists a significant relationship linking real exchange rate, real military spending, and real GNP. The conclusion is based on evidence that these three variables are cointegrated.     

FISCAL ILLUSION AND THE GRANTOR GOVERNMENT IN CANADA

Recent work on the U.S. concludes that one or more illusions are responsible for the empirically observed "flypaper effect." Using annual Canadian data for the period 1962–84, we test the "single-illusion" and "dual-illusion" specifications currently in the literature. While the empirical results support the dual-illusion specification, it is not the unambiguous choice over single-illusion specifications as previously found. Further, the nature of the grant system in Canada raises questions about whether illusions or real factors produce the empirical results.     

THE IMPACT OF FINANCIAL RESTRUCTURING AND CHANGES IN CORPORATE CONTROL ON INVESTMENT AND EMPLOYMENT IN THE U.S. PETROLEUM INDUSTRY

This article investigates the effects of changes in market conditions and the financial structure of domestic petroleum firms on employment and investment in offshore oil leases. Important theoretical issues include the extent to which managerial power in firms has been challenged by intervention from financial markets and institutional investors and the effects of changes in financial control on employment and inventory investment. A pooled cross-section time series data set was assembled for forty large oil companies for 1978–1989. A dynamic analysis of company employment levels and investment in offshore oil leases in the Central Gulf of Mexico reveals that falling oil prices and lower domestic oil consumption reduced spending on offshore leases. Some support was found for the agency theory's claim that lower free cash flow reduced spending on offshore leases in the late eighties. Support was also found for an executive defense strategy (Useem 1993), where petroleum company managers reduced lease spending and employment as an adaptation to changes in market fundamentals and external threats from capital markets and institutional investors.     

TRADE PROTECTION AND THE ROLE OF CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS IN U.S. FOOD AND TOBACCO INDUSTRIES

This article examines the determinants of both trade protection and campaign contributions for a sample of U.S. food and tobacco industries. Empirical findings indicate that while market structure variables are significant, campaign contributions are the key factor in explaining the inter-industry levels of trade barriers in those industries studied. Thus, regardless of industry characteristics, campaign contributions have a strong persuasive role, rather than the facilitative role that most previous studies suggest.     

BIRTHS, DEATHS, AND MARRIAGES IN THE U.S. COMMERCIAL BANKING INDUSTRY

Regulatory change not seen since the Great Depression swept the U.S. banking industry beginning in the early 1980s and culminated with the Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act of 1994. This article examines whether deregulation affected new charter (birth), failure (death), and merger (marriage) rates of U.S. commercial banks from 1978 to 2004 after controlling for bank performance and state economic activity. We find strong evidence that intrastate and interstate deregulation stimulated marriages, but not births or deaths. Finally, temporal causality tests show that mergers temporally lead to new charters and that failures lead to mergers (a demonstration effect) . ( JEL G21, L51)     

THE BERRELSON PARADOX RECONSIDERED INTENTION-BEHAVIOUR CHANGERS IN U.S. AND SWEDISH ELECTION CAMPAIGNS

The Berelson paradox is that in democracies, the aggregate requirementfor adaptability is provided by the least qualified voters,i.e., volatile voters tend to be less knowledgeable and lessinvolved in politics. Analysis of data from ten U.S. and sevenSwedisg national election studies pointed to a significant interactioneffect. The early findings regarding interest and knowledgewere consisitently replicated in the U.S., but not in Sweden.In Sweden, intention-behaviour changers were not likely to below in intest or knowledge, and interested nonpartisans wereoverrepresented among the intention-behaviour changers.     

RACE AND TRUST IN GOVERNMENT: TESTING THE POLITICAL REALITY MODEL

Ever since the Institute for Social Research began measuringpolitical trust more than twenty years ago, racial differenceshave been noted. Since 1968 blacks have been notably less trustingthan whites. The explanation most commonly offered is the politicalreality model. This note directly tests the political realitymodel by comparing the relationship of race to trust in twosettings. One is the nation in 1984 and the second is a citywhere a black mayor and black administration had been in officefor eight years. If the political reality model is correct,the relationship of being black to trust should be positivein the local setting, precisely the opposite of the negativedirection in national samples. The political reality model performedwell under this direct comparison. As others have found, theCPS trust questions measure in large part one's evaluation ofincumbents. These incumbent evaluations are part of the politicalreality that blacks respond to in answering the trust questions.