ANALYZING RENT CONTROL: THE CASE OF LOS ANGELES

An accurate assessment of the economic effects of a rent control law requires that both the specific provisions of the ordinance and the characteristics of the local housing market be considered. Examining the case of Los Angeles we conclude: First, most of the transfers from landlords to tenants were realized early in the law's life, while most of the economic cost of rent control was incurred later. Second, ordinance provisions aimed at increasing landlords' incentives to maintain rent-controlled dwellings also markedly reduce the size of the transfers to tenants. These results, we think, will apply to other jurisdictions.     

DETERMINANTS OF REGIONAL MIGRATION BY MANUFACTURING FIRMS

Economists have produced a sizable literature examining the role of labor migration in restoring wage and price equilibria among dispersed markets. A much smaller literature addresses another dimension of mobility, regional migration of entrepreneurs and firms. In this study we examine a model of the firm's decision to migrate, utilizing the Duns Market Identifiers data file. The model consists in part of an equation describing the decision to migrate, in order to determine the extent to which measured characteristics of the firm's environment explain firm migration. Additional equations in the model explain particular outcomes of migration: the growth in sales during a fixed interval after a move and the corresponding growth of employment.     

Interests and the Growth of Uncertainty

The sociology of knowledge and related work in social psychology have been biased towards overvaluing shared perspectives and the attainment of certainty. This paper moves to fill a theoretical gap created by relative inattention to the roles of nonshared perspectives and uncertainty by outlining a middle-range theory of the connections between human interests and uncertainty. It is proposed that individuals and groups find instrumental uses for uncertainty, just as they do for other states of mind, and that these uses arise from particular interests which characteristically belong to certain types of individuals or groups.     

ECONOMIC WELFARE, PRICE AND PROFIT: THE DETERRENT EFFECT OF ALTERNATIVE ANTITRUST REGIMES

This paper critically examines the deterrent effect of price-fixing statutes under alternative antitrust regimes. A regime is defined by the litigation strategy which the antitrust agency employs in detecting cartels and in determining whether prosecution is warranted and by the basis upon which courts estimate damages. The results of the analysis suggest that antitrust policy may actually induce cartels to further restrict output, increasing welfare loss above the level imposed by an unthreatened, perfect monopoly. Litigation strategy and damages should be founded upon consideration of welfare loss measures to avoid this possibility.     

The Origin and Course of Fabian Colonialism in Africa

Abstract This article shows why and how the practices of Fabians in colonial Africa rested upon a socialist version of the doctrine of trusteeship. With its roots in nineteenth-century Comtean positivism, Fabian colonialism originated in an attempt to transcend the limits of Chamberlainite development as part of the radical-liberal reaction against the doctrine of development. The Labour Government's abortive colonial offensive of 1947 was unwittingly drawn out of Joseph Chamberlain's failed project to develop the 'imperial estates' of Africa through large-scale capitalist enterprise to meet British industrial need. In 1906, the Liberal Party's electoral programme for free trade defeated Chamberlain's imperial and industrial project. The Liberal victory was followed by the success of radicals and liberals in making land nationalisation and peasant production the cornerstone of colonial policy for Africa. This policy confirmed a colonial formula of the early Fabians, such as Sydney Olivier, and marked out the contours for an imperial socialism that were later straightened out by, for instance, Leonard Woolf. As an African surplus population emerged most obviously in the 1930s, the key word of 'development' entered official language and did so in much the same way that it had earlier done in Britain at the turn of the century. Development came to mean state intervention for developing agriculture, and not industry, in an attempt to deal with the problem of urban unemployment and poverty. The agrarian bias of development, notwithstanding the failure of the large schemes of 1947 and the experience of white settlement in Kenya, marks the continuity of Fabian policy to the post-colonial present.     

COULD STABLE MONEY HAVE AVERTED THE GREAT CONTRACTION?

We test the hypothesis that the Great Contraction would have been attenuated had the Federal Reserve not allowed the money stock to decline. We simulate a model that estimates separate relations for output and the price level and assumes that output and price dynamics are not especially sensitive to policy changes. The simulations include a strong and a weak form of Friedman's constant money growth rule. The results support the hypothesis that the Great Contraction would have been mitigated and shortened had the Federal Reserve followed a constant money growth rule.     

DRINKING AGE LAWS AND HIGHWAY MORTALITY RATES: CAUSE AND EFFECT

This paper presents estimates of the effects of the drinking age and beer taxes on youth motor vehicle mortality. A simultaneous equation model is used and the results show that the drinking age is a function of mortality rates. The results also show that for eighteen- to twenty-year-old drivers an increase in the drinking age to twenty-one, which is approximately 8 percent, would reduce mortality by approximately 18 percent. Also a 100 percent increase in the real beer tax, which is approximately $1.50 per case, would reduce highway mortality by about 27 percent.     

THE AMBIGUOUS CONSEQUENCES OF ANTI-DUMPING LAWS

The anti-dumping law is most often applied in oligopolistic industries, while most analyses focus on the monopoly model. I analyze a duopoly model where a foreign firm engages in price-based dumping. Under Cournot behavior, the anti-dumping law has ambiguous price and welfare effects. When the home firm is a Stackleberg leader, two disquieting effects emerge. First, the home firm can use the anti-dumping law to curtail competition even when the foreign firm does not initially engage in dumping. Second, the anti-dumping law can increase profits of both firms at the expense of domestic consumers.     

CHANGE IN VOTING TURNOUT, 1952-1972

The relationship of age to voting turnout over a 20-year periodis analyzed in a multivariate model with controls for causalcovariates and "period" and "cohort" effects. The observed curvilinearpattern of turnout with age remains after holding rival factorsconstant, but the apparent curvilinearity of cohort membershipdisappears. Instead, a pattern of decreasing turnout among successivelyyounger birth cohorts is found, suggesting differences in thepolitical socialization of voting obligations between the nineteenthand twentieth centuries.     

FAMILY LIFE AND AMERICAN POLITICS: THE "MARRIAGE GAP" RECONSIDERED

In recent years, several writers have identified marital statusas a potentially important line of political cleavage, observingthat singles are more likely to vote Democratic than marriedvoters are. Changes in both the structure of American familiesand in the salience of "family politics" in the policy arenasuggest increased attention to the political consequences ofmarital status and family life-style. This paper contributesto advancing theory concerning the relationship between familylife and politics, and empirically evaluating several competinghypotheses concerning the so-called marriage gap in the 1972through 1988 presidential elections.