EXPERTS AND THEIR RECORDS

A market where short‐lived customers interact with long‐lived experts is considered. Experts privately observe which treatment best serves a customer, but are free to choose more or less profitable treatments. Customers only observe records of experts' past actions. If experts are homogeneous there exists an equilibrium where experts always choose the customer's preferred treatment (play truthfully). Experts are incentivized with the promise of future business: new customers tend to choose experts who performed less profitable treatments in the past. If expert payoffs are private information, experts can never always be truthful. But sufficiently patient experts may be truthful almost always. (JEL C73, D82)     

AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF ALCOHOL ADDICTION: RESULTS FROM THE MONITORING THE FUTURE PANELS

In a panel of young adults, we find that alcohol consumption is addictive in the sense that increases in past or future consumption cause current consumption to rise. The positive and significant future consumption effect is consistent with the hypothesis of rational addiction. The long-run price elasticity is approximately 60% larger than the short-run price elasticity and twice as large as the elasticity that ignores addiction. Thus, a tax hike policy to curtail consumption or abuse may not have a favorable cost-benefit ratio unless it is based on the long-run price elasticity. (JEL 110)     

GEOGRAPHICALLY LOCALIZED KNOWLEDGE: SPILLOVERS OR MARKETS?

Using detailed data on California biotechnology, we find that the positive impact of research universities on nearby firms relates to identifiable market exchange between particular university star scientists and firms and not to generalized knowledge spillovers. Poisson and two-stage Heckman regressions indicate the number of star-firm collaborations powerfully predicts success: for an average firm, five articles coauthored by academic stars and the firm's scientists imply about five more products in development, 3.5 more products on the market, and 860 more employees. Stars collaborating with or employed by firms, or who patent, have significantly higher citation rates than pure academic stars. (JEL O31, D62, L65, L66)     

CARBON GEOGRAPHY: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF CONGRESSIONAL SUPPORT FOR LEGISLATION INTENDED TO MITIGATE GREENHOUSE GAS PRODUCTION

Over the last 5 years, the U.S. Congress has voted on several pieces of legislation intended to sharply reduce the nation's greenhouse gas emissions. Given that climate change is a world public bad, standard economic logic would predict that the United States would “free ride” and wait for other nations to reduce their emissions. Within the Congress, there are clear patterns to who votes in favor of mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. This paper presents a political economy analysis of the determinants of “pro‐green” votes on such legislation. Conservatives consistently vote against such legislation. Controlling for a representative's ideology, representatives from richer districts and districts with a lower per‐capita carbon dioxide footprint are more likely to vote in favor of climate change mitigation legislation. Representatives from districts where industrial emissions represent a larger share of greenhouse gas emissions are more likely to vote no. (JEL Q54, Q58, R50)     

ECONOMICS COURSEWORK AND LONG‐TERM BEHAVIOR AND EXPERIENCES OF COLLEGE GRADUATES IN LABOR MARKETS AND PERSONAL FINANCE

Using survey data from over 2,000 students who attended one of four large public universities in 1976, 1986, or 1996, we investigate the relationship between taking more coursework in economics, or choosing economics as an undergraduate major, and a wide range of later decisions and outcomes in labor markets and personal finance, many of which have not been analyzed in earlier research. Generally, economics coursework and majoring in economics are significantly related to higher levels of earnings, home equity, and savings. They are also associated with working more hours and negatively related to completing graduate degrees (except the MBA). Among graduates with positive savings, those with more economics coursework invest more in individual stocks and money market accounts, and are more likely to have employer‐provided life insurance. They have fewer credit cards, which are more often paid in full each month. Most of these findings also hold for graduates who majored in business, but on average economics majors worked more hours and earned more than business majors, were more likely to have been self‐employed, and expected to retire at an older age. Business majors were more likely to have experienced a layoff, and were even less likely than economics majors to complete graduate degrees (except the MBA). Economics majors expected to save even more than business majors by retirement, and viewed short‐term and precautionary motives for saving as more important. Finally, our results suggest that exposure to economics through course‐taking is more important for later outcomes than actual performance in those courses. (JEL A22, J3, D12)     

Tricks of the Trade: Questionable Theory and Practice in Family Therapy

Summary This paper looks at certain over-systematizing trends in familytherapy, and at a group of practices, connected with such systems-thinking,which espouse manipulation and deception. It is argued thatthese theories and methods, couched in a language of scientism,represent a questionable and cynical direction in therapeuticwork. This technocratic approach not only disfigures personaland social being, but erodes social work principles foundedmorally upon a respect for persons. An alternative view is advocatedin which the value of the person is considered as central toan adequate human science. This regards the nature of understandingas based upon the finitude of experience, and therefore offersan appreciation of the person not as an ‘object’fit for technocratic manipulation, but in terms of his subjectiveand historical being.     

Rethinking the Concept of Sustainability

The role of business ethics in developing more sustainable societies is crucial, but we first have to review the concept of sustainability itself and its ethical roots. The objective of this work is to rethink the current concept of sustainability by providing it with a sound universalistic ethical rationale. We propose that ethics is the key by which disputes and conflicts among the economic, social, and environmental domains can and ought to be resolved. This work argues that if we fail to recognize the essential ethical grounding of sustainability, or if we take it for granted, then sustainability can easily lose its way and can end up unjustified.     

PRACTICE‐FOCUSED RESEARCH ISSUES FOR SCHEDULING SYSTEMS*

Scheduling research has had relatively little impact on manufacturing practice, yet within the last several years, there has been an explosive growth in the development and implementation of computer‐based scheduling systems in industry. Changes in the environment have increased the stakes and the opportunities for the results of scheduling research to influence manufacturing competitiveness. This paper draws on field‐related experiences with the development and implementation of scheduling systems to propose high‐impact research topics.     

CAPACITATED REMANUFACTURING WITH SERVICE LEVEL CONSTRAINTS*

This research examines production planning and control for a remanufacturer that can sell returned items on a graded as‐is basis or remanufacture the returned items. Using a GI/G/1 queuing network, we model the firms decision to remanufacture an optimal product mix over the long run that maximizes profits while maintaining a desired service level. We further use simulation to explore dispatching heuristics that can be used at the shop‐floor level to achieve the desired optimal product mix, while meeting the service level constraint. Our research is grounded in actual practice and the results provide key insights into the decision‐making process required to maximize profits and minimize average flow times for remanufactured products.