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1.
Natural Resources
The earth's natural resources are finite, which means that if we use them continuously, we will eventually exhaust them. This article displays data of a few natural resources and the reserves for them in 1950 and 1980. [Details...]
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2.
Agricultural Price Supports
This article discusses how governments control prices on foods and the effects that it is having on the economy and politics of certain places where this practice is prevalent, namely Africa. It also goes on to discuss forms of price support and uses the United States Government as an example. [Details...]
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4.
Environmentalism, Free-Market
Free-market environmentalism emphasizes markets as a solution to environmental problems. Proponents argue that free markets can be more successful than government-and have been more successful historically-in solving many environmental problems. This article describes this idea.
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5.
Greenhouse Effect
This article addresses what the Greenhouse Effect is, how serious it is, its effects on developing countries, why countries should do anything, and the possible solutions to the issue. [Details...]
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6.
Recycling
Recycling is the process of converting waste products into resusable materials. This article explains the economics of recycling and the deterrents to recycling. [Details...]
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7.
Going, Going, Gone! A Survey of Auction Types
One of the best ways to allocate goods and/or resources is to sell them using free market techniques and ideas. An auction is an excellent method of distributing goods to those who value them most highly. Auctions, however, are far more complex than most people realize.
Kate Reynolds has developed a series of articles for Agorics, explaining different auction types and some of the issues important in determining whether to use auctions and, if so, which kind. What exactly is an auction? You may think you already know. Then again . . .
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9.
Auctions
Lists several auction types and briefly discusses the effect known as the winner's curse. [Details...]
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10.
Demand
A short encyclopedia entry describing demand and its use in economics. [Details...]
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11.
Efficiency
A short encyclopedia entry explaining efficiency as the relationship between ends and means. [Details...]
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13.
Supply
A short encyclopedia entry describing supply and its use in economics. [Details...]
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16.
The Consumer
This article is part of a Neo-Walrasian General Equilibrium System discussion, and covers Commodities and Preferences, Utility Functions, Budget Constraints, Demand, Properties of Demand, and Generalized Law of Demand.
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17.
Price Elasticity of Demand
Defines price elasticity of demand, discusses the implications of elastic and inelastic demands, and lists some factors that influence a product's price elasticity of demand. [Details...]
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21.
The Consumer: Choice and Equillibrium
Discussion including competitive equilibrium, the consumer, choice and indifference curves, working towards the optimal bundle, indicators, the invisible hand, income and substitution effect, demand curves, and applications to the housing market and subsidies, and utility and utility functions. There are also practice problems. [Details...]
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22.
Redistribution of Income
This article discusses whether the actual benefits to the poor may be much smaller than people assume, even though the government institutes policies which redistribute enormous amounts of money each year. [Details...]
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23.
Distribution of Income
The distribution of income is central to one of the most enduring issues in political economics. This article describes how income is distributed now, and how-and why-the distribution has changed over the decades in order to answer the question of whether the government should redistibute more or less income. [Details...]
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24.
Research and Development
Research and development is the creation of knowledge to be used in products or processes. This article answers the questions of whether private R&D is productive, government R&D is productive, and whether R&D is worthy of special treatment. [Details...]
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28.
Multi-Sectoral Growth
A collection of articles providing a comprehensive coverage of the Multi-Sectoral Growth. The following topics are covered: The Uzawa Two-Sector Growth Model, Optimal Two-Sector Growth, and Heterogeneous Capital and Growth.
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29.
The Neoclassical Growth Model
In the Harrod-Domar growth model, steady-state growth was unstable. In the popular term of the day, it was a "knife-edge" in the sense that any deviation from that path would result in a further move away from that path. However, Robert M. Solow (1956), Trevor Swan (1956) and, a bit later, James E. Meade (1961) contested this conclusion. They claimed that the capital-output ratio of the Harrod-Domar model should not be regarded as exogenous. In fact, they proposed a growth model where the capital-output ratio, v, was precisely the adjusting variable that would lead a system back to its steady-state growth path, i.e. that v would move to bring s/v into equality with the natural rate of growth (n). The resulting model has become famously known as the "Solow-Swan" or simply the "Neoclassical" growth model.
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30.
OPEC
Few people are aware of it today, but OPEC (the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) was formed in response to the U.S. imposition of import quotas on oil. OPEC is a cartel: a group of producers that attempts to restrict output in order to keep prices higher than the competitive level. [Details...]
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31.
Industrial Revolution and the Standard of Living
This article explains how the industrial revolution, the transformation of technological process, education, and an increasing capital stock, caused a sustained rise in real income per person in England and, as its effects spread, the rest of the world. [Details...]
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32.
Advertising Bans in the United States
Freedom of expression has always ranked high on the American scale of values and fundamental rights. This essay addressed regulation of "commercial speech," which is defined as speech or messages that propose a commercial transaction. [Details...]
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33.
The History of the Aerospace Industry
The aerospace industry ranks among the world's largest manufacturing industries in terms of people employed and value of output. Yet even beyond its shear size, the aerospace industry was one of the defining industries of the twentieth century. [Details...]
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35.
Agricultural Tenures and Tithes
This article addresses agricultural land tenures, the arrangements under which farmers occupied farmland, which continues to be the subject of extensive study by agricultural historians and economists. [Details...]
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36.
Economic History of Tractors in the United States
The farm tractor is one of the most important and easily recognizable technological components of modern agriculture in the United States. Its development in the first half of the twentieth century fundamentally changed the nature of farm work, significantly altered the structure of rural America, and freed up millions of workers to be absorbed into the rapidly growing manufacturing and service sectors of the country. The tractor represents an important application of the internal combustion engine, rivaling the automobile and the truck in its economic impact.
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37.
Alcohol Prohibition
This article discusses the era of alcohol prohibition in the United States and the effects which were derived from it. [Details...]
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38.
The Economy of Ancient Greece
This article will set out the types of evidence available for studying the Greek economy, to describe briefly the long-running debate about the ancient Greek economy and the most widely accepted model of it, and to present a basic view of the various sectors of the ancient Greek economy during the three major phases of its history. [Details...]
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39.
Historical Anthropometrics
This article provides a brief background of the field including a history of human body measurement and analysis and a description of the biological foundations for historical anthropometrics, and describes the current state of the field and future directions. [Details...]
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42.
US Banking History, Civil War to World War II
This article describes how the National Banking era was ushered in by the passage of the National Currency (later renamed the National Banking) Acts of 1863 and 1864. The Acts marked a decisive change in the monetary system, confirmed a quarter-century-old trend in bank chartering arrangements, and also played a role in financing the Civil War.
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44.
History of Labor Turnover in the U.S.
Labor turnover measures the movement of workers in and out of employment with a particular firm. This article explains how the rise of large scale firms in the late nineteenth century and the decreasing importance of agricultural employment meant that a growing number of workers were employed by firms. It was only in this context that interest in measuring labor turnover and understanding its causes began. [Details...]
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45.
Labor Unions in the United States
This article explores the nature and development of labor unions in the United States. It reviews the growth and recent decline of the American labor movement and makes comparisons with the experience of foreign labor unions to clarify particular aspects of the history of labor unions in the United States. [Details...]
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46.
Life Insurance in the United States through World War I
This article examines the beginnings of life insurance policies with Presbyterian Synods in Philadelphia and the Corporation for Relief or Poor and Distressed Widows in New York. It also examines mutuality, the civil war, the Armstrong Committee Investigation, and continued growth in the early twentieth century. [Details...]
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48.
Economic History of Malaysia
This article discusses the importance of Malaysia as a case study in economic development. It is generally regarded as one of the most successful non-western countries to have achieved a relatively smooth transition to modern economic growth over the last century or so. [Details...]
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49.
Thomas Robert Malthus
This article gives a brief decsription on Malthus's prediction that the population would be unable to feed itself in a certain matter of time. [Details...]
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50.
The Marshall Plan, 1948-1951
The Marshall Plan was aimed at help the economies of Western Europe between 1948 and 1951. This article focuses on the competing interpretations of the effects of the Marshall Plan. [Details...]
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52.
Monetary Unions
This article defines monetary unions, discusses its advantages and disadvantages, explains its history in the nineteenth century, and gives examples of success stories. [Details...]
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56.
Morris Plan Banks
This article explains how Morris Plan banks were at the forefront of an explosion of consumer credit that started at the beginning of the second decade of the twentieth century and how they became the prominent institution for providing consumer credit to the poor through the 1920s. [Details...]
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57.
Fertility and Mortality in the United States
Every modern, economically developed nation has experienced the demographic transition from high to low levels of fertility and mortality. America is no exception. But America was also distinctive. First, its fertility transition began in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century at the latest. Second, the fertility rate in America commenced its sustained decline long before that of mortality. Third, both these processes were influenced by America's very high level of net in-migration and also by the significant population redistribution to frontier areas and later to cities, towns, and suburbs. [Details...]
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58.
Manufactured and Natural Gas Industry
The historical gas industry includes two chemically distinct flammable gasses. These are natural gas and several variations of manufactured coal gas. Both are explained in more detail throughout the course of the article. [Details...]
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60.
An Economic History of New Zealand in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
Living standards in New Zealand were among the highest in the world between the late nineteenth century and the 1960's. But New Zealand's economic growth was very sluggish between 1950 and the early 1990s, and most Western European countries, as well as several in East Asia, overtook New Zealand in terms of real per capita income. By the early 2000s, New Zealand's GDP per capita was in the bottom half of the developed world.
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62.
The National Recovery Administration
This article outlines the history of the National Recovery Administration, one of the most important and controversial agencies in Roosevelt's New Deal. It discusses the agency's "codes of fair competition" under which antitrust law exemptions could be granted in exchange for adoption of minimum wages, problems some industries encountered in their subsequent attempts to fix prices under the codes, and the macroeconomic effects of the program.
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63.
Economic Histories of the Opium Trade
Because a lot has already been written on the opium trade in various parts of the world, this piece will focus on the history of the opium trade through the lens of the economic historian. In other words, it will address the question, "Why is opium of special interest to economic historians?" Following a brief background of the opium trade, a discussion of this question is provided with a focus on Asia and with references to more detailed and case-specific sources. [Details...]
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65.
Reconstruction Finance Corporation
This article explains the history of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, how it operated during the Hoover administration and during the New Deal, as well as WWII and the final years until 1953. [Details...]
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68.
David Ricardo
David Ricardo (1772-1823) was one of the greatest theoretical economists of all time. This article describes Ricardo's life and his contributions to the economic community, including the theory of rent and the concept of comparative advantage. [Details...]
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70.
Rural Electrification Administration
The advent of the electric industry in the 1880s ushered forward a rapidly expanding domestic market in the United States. This article describes the origins of this phenomenon and the outcomes for today. [Details...]
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71.
The Depression of 1893
This article describes economic developments in the decades leading up to the depression; the performance of the economy during the 1890's; domestic and international causes of depression; and political and social responses to the depression. [Details...]
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72.
The Panic of 1907
The Panic of 1907 was the last and most severe of the bank panics that plagued the National Banking Era of the United States. This article discusses what caused the panic, the panic at the trust companies, the connection to the stock market, and why there were runs on the trust companies. [Details...]
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73.
Path Dependence
Several of the most prominent path-dependent features of the economy are technical standards, such as the "QWERTY" standard typewriter (and computer) keyboard and the "standard gauge" of railway track -- i.e., the width between the rails. The case of QWERTY has been particularly controversial and is discusses in this article. [Details...]
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75.
Historical Political Business Cycles in the United States
The notion that incumbents will alter the economic environment for their short-term political gain at the expense of long-term economic stability is referred to as generating a political business cycle. This article details the history of this notion by using past president's policies as examples. [Details...]
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76.
English Poor Laws
For nearly three centuries, the Poor Law constituted "a welfare state in miniature," relieving the elderly, widows, children, the sick, the disabled, and the unemployed and underemployed (Blaug 1964). This essay will outline the changing role played by the Poor Law, focusing on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
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77.
Economic History of Portugal
This article begins with the roots of Portugal to give a bit of economic history. It starts with the early centuries until the Spanish rule in the eighteenth century and describes its economic evolution. [Details...]
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78.
The Protestant Ethic Thesis
This article summarizes German sociologist Max Weber's formulation, considers criticisms of Weber's thesis, and reviews evidence of linkages between cultural values and economic growth.
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80.
Savings and Loan Industry (U.S.)
The savings and loan industry is the leading source of institutional finance for residential home mortgages in America. This article discusses the origins and the history thus far of this industry. [Details...]
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81.
International Shipping Cartels
The international shipping industry has been characterized by a remarkable degree of collusion for more than a century. This article shows the attempts at collusion and the government's role and responsibility. [Details...]
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82.
Slavery in the United States
This article examines slavery in the United States by discussing the spread of slavery in the U.S., the insitutional framework, the legal status of slaves and blacks, the rights and responsibilities of slave masters, markets and prices, and profitibality, efficiency, and exploitation. [Details...]
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83.
Smoot-Hawley Tariff
The Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930 was the subject of enormous controversy at the time of its passage and remains one of the most notorious pieces of legislation in the history of the United States. This article explains why it caused controversy and is still referred to today. [Details...]
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84.
History of Property Taxes in the United States
The growth of the property tax in America was closely related to economic and political conditions on the frontier. This article describes how in pre-commercial agricultural areas the property tax was a feasible source of local government revenue and equal taxation of wealth was consistent with the prevailing equalitarian ideology. [Details...]
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88.
The Fordney-McCumber Tariff of 1922
This article begins with reference to the Emergency Tariff Act of 1921, then goes on to discusse the Fordney-McCumber Tariff. The article then compares Fordney-McCumber, Payne-Aldrich, and Underwood-Simmons, and discusses the Fordney-McCumber Tariff with respect to American agriculture and International retaliation. [Details...]
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90.
History of the U.S. Telegraph Industry
The electric telegraph was one of the first telecommunications technologies of the industrial age. This article explains its invention and development throughout the years and at the end gives a timeline of those events. [Details...]
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94.
Usury
The question of when and if money can be lent at interest for a guaranteed return is one of the oldest moral and economic problems in Western Civilization. This article describes how by the early modern period the concept of usury began to be secularized, but the issue of what usury is and when it occurs is still causing disputes in modern legal and theological systems.
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99.
Hours of Work in U.S. History
This article presents estimates of the length of the historical workweek in the U.S., describes the history of the shorter-hours "movement," and examines the forces that drove the workweek's decline over time. [Details...]
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100.
Arthur Young
Arthur Young was widely regarded by his contemporaries as the leading agricultural writer of the time. This article gives a short biography of Arthur Young. [Details...]
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102.
Banking Panics in the US: 1873-1933
Prior to the passage of deposit insurance legislation in 1933 banking panics were a recurrent feature of U.S. banking history. Three phases of that panic experience can be identified depending upon the type of regulatory framework in place: the pre-Civil War era, the National Banking era, and the era of the Federal Reserve System. [Details...]
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103.
Banking in the Western U.S.
This article starts with the California gold rush and explains through the developments until after World War II. It discusses the failures and what has become our system today. [Details...]
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105.
A History of the Bar Code
This article explains how the bar code was developed and its changing use throughout its invention. It also gives indications of possible future uses for the bar code. [Details...]
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106.
Bimetallism
A bimetallic monetary standard can be defined as one in which coins of two different metals are legal tender. Such standards were commonplace in Western economies throughout most of the last millennium, although their details differed. [Details...]
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109.
Carnegie, Andrew
Andrew Carnegie rose from poverty to become an industrial magnate, as well as a prolific and influential writer. This article explains Carnegie's life and accomplishments. [Details...]
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110.
Child Labor during the British Industrial Revolution
This article examines the historical debate about child labor in Britain, Britain's political response to problems with child labor, quantitative evidence about child labor during the 1800's, and economic explanations of the practice of child labor. [Details...]
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111.
Economic History of Premodern China
China has the longest continually recorded history in the premodern world. For economic historians, it makes sense to begin with the formation of China's national economy in the wake of China's unification in 221 BC under the Qin. The year 1800 AD coincides with the beginning of the end for China's premodern era, which was hastened by the First Opium War (1839-42). Hence, the time span of this article is two millennia.
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113.
The Economics of the Civil War
This article focuses on the economic causes of the Civil war, the costs of the war, the problem of financing the war, and a re-examination of the Hacker-Beard thesis that the war was a turning point in American economic history. [Details...]
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114.
The US Coal Industry in the Nineteenth Century
The coal industry was a major foundation for American industrialization in the nineteenth century. As a fuel source, coal provided a cheap and efficient source of power for steam engines, furnaces, and forges across the United States. [Details...]
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115.
Common Agricultural Policy
This article examines Europe's Common Agricultural Policy as one of the most controversial farm policies of all time. It discusses the criticism during its period of operation and the radical reform proposals. [Details...]
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116.
The Company Town
This article explains the company town as an economic institution that was part of the market for labor. It discusses company towns as primarily existing in areas associated with the coal industry and discusses the labor struggles associated with it. [Details...]
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117.
Economic Interests and the Adoption of the United States Constitution
This article examines how our Founding Fathers designed the Constitution, examining findings on the political and economic factors behind the provisions included in the Constitution and its ratification. The article discusses the views of Charles Beard and his critics and focuses on recent quantitative findings that explain the making of the Constitution. These findings suggest that personal interests of the Founding Fathers, as well as constituents' interests, played an important role in drafting the Constitution. They also suggest that economic and other interests played important roles at the ratifying conventions.
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118.
Cotton Gin
The cotton gin developed by Eli Whitney in 1793 marked a major turning point in the economic history of the Southern United States. This article describes what came before Eli Whitney and his innovative design. [Details...]
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119.
Mechanical Cotton Picker
Until World War II, the Cotton South remained poor, backward, and un-mechanized. With minor exceptions, most tasks -- plowing, cultivating, and finally harvesting cotton -- were done by hand. The mechanical cotton picker played an indispensable role in the transition from the prewar South of over-population, sharecropping, and hand labor to the capital-intensive agriculture of the postwar South. [Details...]
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120.
Council of Economic Advisers
"The Council of Economic Advisers was established by the Employment Act of 1946 to provide the President with objective economic analysis and advice on the development and implementation of a wide range of domestic and international economic policy issues." This article examines the history, policies and evolving role and influence of the CEA. [Details...]
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121.
Credit in the Colonial American Economy
Credit was vital to the economy of colonial America and much of the individual prosperity and success in the colonies was due to credit. This article discusses all payment options as well as the nature of the repayment of credit in order to understand the role of credit in the eighteenth century. [Details...]
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122.
Deflation
Deflation is a persistent fall in some generally followed aggregate indicator of price movements, such as the consumer price index or the GDP deflator. This article examines the historical and contemporary worries about deflation, deflation in the Great Depression Era, the debt-deflation problem, and more concerning the labor market and today. [Details...]
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123.
Economy of England at the Time of the Norman Conquest
The Domesday Survey of 1086 provides high quality and detailed information on the inputs, outputs and tax assessments of most English estates. This article describes how the data have been used to reconstruct the eleventh-century Domesday economy. By exploiting modern economic theory and statistical methods the reconstruction has led to a radically different assessment of the way in which the Domesday economy and fiscal system were organized. [Details...]
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125.
The Dust Bowl
The Dust Bowl was a coincidence of drought, severe wind erosion, and economic depression that occurred on the Southern and Central Great Plains during the 1930s. This article discusses rountine dust storms, how the 1930s were different, and the New Deal's response to the dilemma. [Details...]
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127.
Fair Housing Laws
This article begins with fair housing's origins and operations and goes on to describe its impact and extension. [Details...]
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128.
Federal Reserve System
The historical origins of the Federal Reserve System can be traced to chronic currency problems in the nineteenth century. In response to the Panic of 1907, Congress created the National Monetary Commission charged with the mission of reforming the currency system. It soon became clear that some type of central banking institution would emerge from the Commissions deliberations, albeit one operating within the context of a gold standard. This article focuses on the key questions: What type of central bank? Would it be a centralized one, or a populist, decentralized one?
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129.
The Glorious Revolution of 1688
The Glorious Revolution was when William of Orange took the English throne from James II in 1688. This article gives a historical overview of the event, and discusses tensions, the new constitution and its credibility as well as fiscal credibility, and the financial consequences. [Details...]
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130.
Fire Insurance in the United States
This article explains the rationale and development for fire insurance. It gives a table of the various companies within the different states and the year of formation. Graphs depict fire losses and other variables. [Details...]
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131.
Fraternal Sickness Insurance
This article explains the types of fraternal orders that existed in the late nineteenth and early twentietch centuries and the types of insurance they offered, explains how friendly societies worked to provide sickness insurance as a reasonable price by overcoming the adverse selection and moral hazard problems, while facing problems of risk diversification, and closes by examining historians' assessments of the importance and adequacy of fraternal sickness insurance. [Details...]
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134.
Gold Standard
The periods in which the gold standard flourished, the groupings of countries under the gold standard, and the dates during which individual countries adhered to this standard are delineated in the first section. Then characteristics of the gold standard, and implications for the money supply of a country on the standard are outlined. [Details...]
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135.
An Overview of the Great Depression
This article provides an overview of selected events and economic explanations of the interwar era. What follows is not intended to be a detailed and exhaustive review of the literature on the Great Depression, or of any one theory in particular. Rather, it will attempt to describe the "big picture" events and topics of interest. For the reader who wishes more extensive analysis and detail, references to additional materials are also included.
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136.
Economic History of Hawai'i
The Hawaiian Islands are a cain of 132 islands, shoals, and reefs extending over 1,523 miles in the Northeast Pacific Ocean. This article gives a background of how Hawaii came to be inhabited, the unification of Hawaii and its population decline, the importance of sugar and immigration, and its economic integration with the United States. [Details...]
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137.
Health Insurance in the United States
This article describes the development of the U.S. health insurance system and its growth in the twentieth century. It examines the roles of important factors including medical technology, hospitals and physicians, and government policy culminating in the development of Medicare and Medicaid.
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138.
The Economic History of Korea
This article discusses the economic history of Korea with respect to three distinct periods: 1) the period of Malthusian stagnation up to 1910, when Japan annexed Korea; 2) the colonial period from 1910-45, when the country embarked upon modern economic growth; and 3) the post colonial decades, when living standards improved rapidly in South Korea, while North Korea returned to the world of disease and starvation. [Details...]
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141.
The Roots of American Industrialization, 1790-1860
This article describes synergy between agriculture and manufacturing, manufactures which were produced for large market areas, the impact of transportation improvements, manufactures of Eastern and national markets, and the American manufacturing belt. [Details...]
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142.
Harold Adams Innis
This article explains Harold Adam Innis' role in the economic community and the contributions that he made to it. [Details...]
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143.
Ireland's Great Famine
This article describes the Great Irish Famine from 1846-1852 by explaining its causes, the direct effects of the famine, and the post-famine adjustment. [Details...]
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144.
Property Rights
A property right is the exclusive authority to determine how a resource is used, whether that resource is owned by government or individuals. This article explains property rights further by discussing the three basic elements of private property. [Details...]
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145.
Eastern Europe
This article describes how Eastern Europe is transforming its economic system by dismantling the remnants of the communist system and building market-oriented economies based on private ownership. [Details...]
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146.
Perestroika
This article describes the events leading up to Gorbachev's Perestroika, or restructuring, of the economic structure of Russia and his plans for implementation. [Details...]
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147.
Apartheid
This article describes the apartheid system of South Africa and the economic foundations of that tortuous social structure. [Details...]
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148.
Capitalism
This article defines capitalism and explains how it came about and the ideologies associated with it. It also explains how the economic powers use capitalism and the purpose it serves today. [Details...]
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149.
Fascism
This article explains Fascism using the best example in history of the regime of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. [Details...]
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150.
Free Market
Free market is a summary term for an array of exchanges that take place in society. Each exchange is undertaken as a voluntary agreement between two people or between groups of people represented by agents. This article explains how people exchange in order to benefit themselves. [Details...]
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151.
Socialism
Socialism- defined as a centrally planned economy in which the government controls all means of production- was the tragic failure of the twentieth century. This article discusses the birth of socialist planning, the problems that emerged as a result of socialism, and socialist planning in Western eyes. [Details...]
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152.
Cantillon's "Land Theory of Value"
General equilibrium theory, indeed much of economics itself, owes its existence to an Irishman who lived obscurely in 18th Century France by the name of Richard Cantillon. In his remarkable Essai sur la Nature du Commerce en Generale (published only in 1755, but written c.1732-1734), Cantillon sets out, perhaps for the first time, the vision of an "economy" as a set of interacting markets connected by a price system with balanced circular flows of income between agents. Cantillon's setting was the first great breakthrough in economic theory - for it provided the fundamental structural idea behind the concept of an "economy" which was to possess all subsequent economics - Physiocratic, Classical and Neoclassical. [Details...]
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153.
Asset-Backed Securities
Of the array of creative financing techniques that came of age in the eighties, one that emerged from that tumultuous decade with its reputation intact is asset securitization. This article explains these asset-backed securities. [Details...]
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154.
Bonds
Bond markets are important components of capital markets. This article discusses the different types of bonds: U.S. Government Bonds, Corporate Bonds, and Municipal Bonds. [Details...]
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155.
Corporate Debt
This article explains corporate debt by examining a paper written in 1958 by Franco Modigiliani and Merton Miller which contains a theory known as "the M&M theory." [Details...]
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156.
Corporations
Corporations are easy to create but hard to understand. Because corporations arose as an alternative to partnerships, they can best be understood by comparing these competing organizational structures.
[Details...]
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157.
Efficient Capital Markets
To an economist the difference between the market in the late 1700s and today is that today's market is more "efficient" at incorporating information into security prices. Efficient capital markets are commonly thought of as markets in which security prices fully reflect all relevant information that is available about the fundamental value of the securities. [Details...]
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158.
Futures and Options Markets
This article explains how futures contracts provide stability in an unstable business environment and how without a futures market it would be difficult to know whether a price offered or demanded for emissions allowances is high or low. [Details...]
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159.
Insider Trading
This article cites the basic arguments against insider trading with reference to well known cases and public policies. [Details...]
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160.
Interest
Interest is the price people pay to have resources now rather than later. This article gives an example of how it might be used in order to demonsrate the formula for calculating interest. [Details...]
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161.
Junk Bonds
This article explains how junk bonds are debt instruments that are issued by corporate borrowers and which the major bond-rating agencies say are less than "investment grade." [Details...]
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162.
Pensions
This article describes the basic features of the U.S. Pension Plans, defined contribution plans, defined benefit plans, plan termination, and economic issues surrounding pensions. [Details...]
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163.
Present Value
Present value is the value today of an amount of money in the future. This article gives example to describe what this means. [Details...]
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164.
Program Trading
Program trading, the subject of considerable controversy in recent years, is the simultaneous trading of a portfolio of stocks, as opposed to buying or selling just one stock at a time. This article describes how program trading has developed, techniques to trading, and discusses the index arbitrage between the stock market and the futures and options market. [Details...]
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165.
Stock Prices
The price of a share of stock, like that of any other financial asset, equals the present value of the expected stream of future cash payments to the owner. This article explains the firms role in stock prices, returns, and discusses the major determinants of stock prices. [Details...]
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169.
Game Theory
Encyclopedia Entry: Game theory is the science of strategy. It attempts to determine mathematically and logically the actions that "players" should take to secure the best outcomes for themselves in a wide array of "games." [Details...]
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170.
Experience from a Course in Game Theory: Pre and Post-Class Problem Sets as a Didactic Device
This is a revised version of my paper with the same title published in Games and Economic Behavior, 28 (1999), 155-170. The paper summarizes my experience in teaching an undergraduate course in game theory in 1998 and in 1999. Students were required to submit two types of problem sets:pre-class problem sets, which served as experiments, and post-class problem sets, which require the students to study and apply the solution concepts taught in the course. The sharp distinction between the two types of problem sets emphasizes the limited relevance of game theory as a tool for making predictions and giving advice. The paper summarizes the results of 43 experiments which were conducted during the course. It is argued that the crude experimental methods produced results which are not substantially different from those obtained at much higher cost using stricter experimental methods. [Details...]
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171.
Game Theory Course: 1. Strategic-Form Games
We'll look at noncooperative games which are played only once, which involve only a finite number of players, and which give each player only a finite number of actions to choose from. We'll consider what is called the strategic (or normal) form of a game. Although our formal treatment will be more general, our exemplary paradigm will be a two-person, simultaneous-move matrix game. [Details...]
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172.
Game Theory Course: 2.1 Strategic Dominance
To begin our analysis we discuss the concept of strategic dominance. Then we will turn to the more precisely relevant concept of "never a best response." These notions will be the foundation for our study of nonequilibrium solution concepts. These concepts are nonequilibrium in the sense that they typically admit outcomes which are not Nash equilibria. If we can make a useful prediction using only nonequilibrium analysis, our conclusion can be much more compelling than if we had achieved the same result using the much stronger (and frequently more dubious) assumptions required by equilibrium analysis. Furthermore, by applying nonequilibrium techniques in our initial analysis of a game we will frequently greatly simplify our subsequent equilibrium analysis. [Details...]
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173.
Game Theory Course: 2.2 Iterated Dominance and Rationalizability
By assuming that the players' rationality is common knowledge, we can justify an iterative process of outcome rejection--the iterated elimination of strictly dominated strategies--which can often sharpen our predictions. Outcomes which do not survive this process of elimination cannot plausibly be played when the rationality of the players is common knowledge.
A similar, and weakly stronger, process--the iterated elimination of strategies which are never best responses--leads to the solution concept of rationalizability. The surviving outcomes of this process constitute the set of rationalizable outcomes. Each such outcome is a plausible result (and these are the only plausible results)when the players' rationality is common knowledge. In two-player games the set of rationalizable outcomes is exactly the set of outcomes which survive the iterated elimination of strictly dominated strategies. In three-or-more-player games, the set of rationalizable outcomes can be strictly smaller than the set of outcomes which survives the iterated elimination of strictly dominated strategies. [Details...]
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174.
Game Theory Course: 3.1 Nash Equilibrium
When rational players correctly forecast the strategies of their opponents they are not merely playing best responses to their beliefs about their opponents' play; they are playing best responses to the actual play of their opponents. When all players correctly forecast their opponents' strategies, and play best responses to these forecasts, the resulting strategy profile is a Nash equilibrium. [Details...]
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175.
Game Theory Course: 3.2 Computing Mixed-Strategy Nash Equilibria of 2 x 2 Strategic-Form Games
We'll now see explicitly how to find the set of (mixed-strategy) Nash equilibria for general two-player games where each player has a strategy space containing two actions (i.e. a "2x2 matrix game").
We first compute the best-response correspondence for a player. We partition the possibilites into three cases: The player is completely indifferent; she has a dominant strategy; or, most interestingly, she plays strategically (i.e., based upon her beliefs about her opponent's play). [Details...]
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176.
Game Theory Course: 4.1 Introduction to Extensive-Form Games
When we model a strategic economic situation we want to capture as much of the relevant detail as tractably possible. A game can have a complex temporal and information structure; and this structure could well be very significant to understanding the way the game will be played. These structures are not acknowledged explicitly in the game's strategic form, so we seek a more inclusive formulation. It would be desirable to include at least the following: 1) the set of players, 2) who moves when and under what circumstances, 3) what actions are available to a player when she is called upon to move, 4) what she knows when she is called upon to move, and 5) what payoff each player receives when the game is played in a particular way.
We can incorporate all of these features within an extensive-form description of the game. [Details...]
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179.
Game Theory Course: 5.1 Introduction to Repeated Games
One striking feature of many one-shot games we study (e.g., the Prisoners' Dilemma) is that the Nash equilibria are so noncooperative: each player would prefer to fink than to cooperate. Repeated games can incorporate phenomena which we believe are important but which aren't captured when we restrict our attention to static, one-shot games. In particular we can strive to explain how cooperative behavior can be established as a result of rational behavior.
We will develop a useful formalism, the semiextensive form, for analyzing repeated games, i.e. those which are repetitions of the same one-shot game (called the stage game). We will describe strategies for such repeated games as sequences of history-dependent stage-game strategies. The payoffs to the players in this repeated game will be functions of the stage-game payoffs. We will define the concept of Nash equilibrium and after identifying the subgames in this formalism the concept of a subgame-perfect equilibrium for a repeated game. [Details...]
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180.
Game Theory Course: 5.2 Infinitely Repeated Games with Discounting
Infinite repetitions of the stage game potentially pose a problem: a player's repeated-game payoff may be infinite. We ensure the finiteness of the repeated-game payoffs by introducing discounting of future payoffs relative to earlier payoffs. Such discounting can be an expression of time preference and/or uncertainty about the length of the game. We introduce the average discounted payoff as a convenience which normalizes the repeated-game payoffs to be "on the same scale" as the stage-game payoffs. [Details...]
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181.
Game Theory Course: 5.3 A Folk Theorem Sampler
The original motivation for developing a theory of repeated games was to show that cooperative behavior was an equilibrium. The theoreticians were all too clever, for, as we will see, they showed that in many cases a huge multiplicity of even very "noncooperative" stage-game payoffs could be sustained on average as an equilibrium of the repeated game.
These findings are made precise in numerous folk theorems. Each folk theorem considers a class of games and identifies a set of payoff vectors each of which can be supported by some equilibrium strategy profile. There are many folk theorems because there are many classes of games and different choices of equilibrium concept. Some folk theorems identify sets of payoff vectors which can be supported by Nash equilibria; of course, of more interest are those folk theorems which identify payoffs supported by subgame-perfect equilibria. [Details...]
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182.
Game Theory Course: 6.1 Static Games of Incomplete Information
In many economically important situations the game may begin with some player having private information about something relevant to her decision making. These are called games of incomplete information, or Bayesian games. (Incomplete information is not to be confused with imperfect information in which players do not perfectly observe the actions of other players.) Although any given player does not know the private information of an opponent, she will have some beliefs about what the opponent knows, and we will assume that these beliefs are common knowledge. [Details...]
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184.
Game Theory Course: 6.3 Perfect Bayesian Equilibria of Extensive-Form Games
The concept of Perfect Bayesian equilibrium for extensive-form games is defined by four Bayes Requirements. These requirements eliminate the bad subgame-perfect equilibria by requiring players to have beliefs, at each information set, about which node of the information set she has reached, conditional on being informed she is in that information set. [Details...]
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185.
Game Theory
Overview of game theory, including the elements of a game, a game theory framework, bimatrix games, extensive form games, strategic form game representation, signaling and threats, and auctions. [Details...]
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187.
Walrasian Pure Exchange
This article covers The Walrasian Exchange Economy, Demand-and-Supply Representation, Edgeworth-Bowley Box Representation, and Production as Indirect Exchange.
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191.
Radner Equilibrium
The Radner equilibrium considers a situation where there are multiple assets, multiple goods, multiple time periods and multiple states (thus uncertainty). [Details...]
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193.
Asset Structures and Spanning
One of the crucial requirements for the equivalence of Radner equilibrium and Arrow-Debreu equilibrium is that the asset structure of an economy spans the set of states. By "spanning" we mean that a combination of assets can be used to transfer any amount of purchasing power from one state to another. [Details...]
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194.
The Hart Existence Problem
For Radner equilibrium, we need to assume complete asset markets. This does not require that we have a full set of "state-contingent" markets as in Arrow-Debreu, but rather only that the set of assets can "span" the entire state returns space. However, assuming this does not end all difficulties. Recall that the return of asset f in state s is equal to the payoff of asset f in state s evaluated at the spot prices in state s. The fact that returns in different states depend on different state prices can lead to some rather unpleasant consequences, as pointed out by Oliver D. Hart (1975). [Details...]
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196.
The Continuum Economy
This article covers The Continuum Economy: Beginner's guide, The Continuum Economy: Formal Statement, Aumann's Core Equivalence Theorem, Existence of Equilibrium, Restricted Cores: the Epsilon equivalence theorem, and Atoms Revisited: the Oligopoly equivalence theorem.
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197.
Aumann's Core Equivalence Theorem
Robert J. Aumann's (1964) core equivalence theorem states that the set of core allocations in his atomless economy is identical to the set of Walrasian equilibrium allocations, i.e. C(E) = W(E). The method of proof we follow here is not identical to Aumann's original. In particular, we make use of some rather simplifying procedures -- notably, we use Aumann's (1965) definition of "integration of correspondences" and Lyapunov's theorem (introduced into economics by Karl Vind (1964)). However, the essence of the proof is basically the same. [Details...]
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198.
Restricted Cores - The Epsilon Equivalence Theorem
Anthropologists tell us that 150 is about the maximum number of people any given individual can know intimately enough to bond with. We know that in Edgeworthian exchange, agents who are in the process of forming coalitions must know the preferences and endowments of others. If we decide to call this "intimacy" and call coalitions "bonding", then what are the consequences of the anthropologists' observation for the theory of the core? It is clear that the process of coalition-formation is going to be restricted, but exactly in what manner? [Details...]
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199.
Atoms Revisited - The Oligopoly Equivalence Theorem
Is an economy with atoms perfectly competitive or, more accurately, does it yield the same result we obtain in a perfectly competitive economy? The answer, it turns out, is a resounding "Yes!" -- under certain conditions on the size and character of the "atoms". This surprising "oligopoly equivalence" result was first unearthed by Michael J. Farrell (1970) in the context of a Debreu-Scarf replica economy and by Jean-Jaskold Gabszewicz and Jean-Francois Mertens (1971) and Benyamin Shitovitz (1973) in the Aumann continuum economy. [Details...]
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201.
Using Experiments in the Classroom
A rewarding aspect of using experimental techniques in my research is that classroom versions of these experiments are very effective as teaching tools. The use of such classroom games is gaining attention and becoming more widespread. In this article I present some arguments for using classroom games and some suggestions on how to run them. [Details...]
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202.
Poverty in the United States
This article describes poverty as one of America's most peristent and serious problems. This article discusses the poverty line, how measuring poverty is flawed, and what influences poverty and its economic impact. [Details...]
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203.
Health Care Industry
This article explains how health care differs from other goods and services in important ways. The growth in costs, industry structure and competition, and public policy are also discussed. [Details...]
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204.
Health Insurance
This article examines the beginnings of health insurance in the thirties and forties and how it changed in the eighties. [Details...]
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205.
Public Schools
This article begins by comparing scholastic achievement in the 1990's to the 1960's. It uses this information to discuss possible solutions and initiatives to help solve the education problem. [Details...]
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206.
Drug Lag
The modern history of drug regulation in the United States has been marked by the simultaneous pursuit of two goals: safety and efficacy. This article describes this insight and provides evidence of cases where costs incurred due to lawsuits proved to be too much. [Details...]
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207.
Riskless Society
This articles discusses a riskless society by displaying tables of life expectancy, causes of death, mortality death rates, and annual fatality rates. [Details...]
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208.
Advertising
This encyclopedia entry explains the once controversy over advertising and the types and scope of it now. Monopoly and regulation are among the topics tied into this depiction of advertising. [Details...]
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209.
Brand Names
This encyclopedia entry talks about the incomplete information that consumers have regarding brand names. It also tells how the government has stepped in but can only do so much to help consumers know about products. [Details...]
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210.
Computer Industry
This encyclopedia entry explains the development of the computer industry and gives future possibilities with continued knowledge and expansion. [Details...]
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211.
Energy
This encyclopedia entry describes the different energy industries and how they tie together in our economy. [Details...]
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212.
Housing
American housing is number one in the world. This article explains the development and gives a comparison to other country's housing system. [Details...]
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213.
Sports
This article discusses sports as a major business and gives a detail of why teams in bigger cities tend to get better players. [Details...]
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214.
Airline Deregulation
This encyclopedia entry explains how the United States Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 was a dramatic event in the history of economic policy. It was the first thorough dismantling of a comprehensive system of government control since the Supreme Court declared the National Recovery Act unconstitutional in 1935. [Details...]
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215.
Electric Utility Regulation
This is an encyclopedia article which describes the history of electricity regulation and how regulators have in some ways facilitated the growth of electricity markets. [Details...]
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216.
Industrial Concentration
Industrial concentration occurs when a small number of companies sell a large percentage of an industry's product. The most widely used measure of concentration is the so-called four-firm concentration ratio, which is the percentage of the industry's product sold by the four largest producers. [Details...]
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217.
Natural Gas Regulation
Natural gas is methane in underground deposits, produced by the same geological processes as oil. The regulation over the years has changed dramatically from a lot to more lenience in the recent years. [Details...]
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218.
Patents
A patent is the government grant of monopoly on an invention for a limited amount of time. This encyclopedia entry describes patents and the way the system works. [Details...]
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219.
Telecommunications
Telecommunications is important for two reasons. First, it plays a vital role in the organization and operation of the modern global economy. Second, the problems associated with regulating and organizing the telecommunications industry have stimulated a great deal of economic analysis that is important in its own right and relevant to other sectors of the economy as well. [Details...]
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220.
Trucking Deregulation
The federal government has been regulating prices and competition in interstate transportation ever since Congress created the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to oversee the railroad industry in 1887. This article describes the costs and regulations and the successes of deregulation. [Details...]
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221.
Industrial Policy
National industrial policy is a rubric for a broad range of proposed economic reforms that emerged as a unified political program in the early eighties. This article goes on to talk about the program since then. [Details...]
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222.
Industry Concentration
Discusses two common methods for measuring the concentration of firms in an industry: the concentration ratio and the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index. [Details...]
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223.
Information
In the past two decades, an important strand of economic research, sometimes referred to as information economics, has explored the extent to which markets and other institutions process and convey information. [Details...]
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224.
Insurance
Insurance plays a central role in the functioning of modern economies. The traditional role of insurance remains the essential one recognized in ancient civilizations, that of spreading risk among similarly situated individuals. [Details...]
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226.
Revisiting Teaching Moral Hazard: Additional Class-Room Experimental Results
The authors previously presented results of their attempt to make moral hazard more real to beginning economics students by inducing their own demonstration of it through their behavior regarding exams. Though earlier results provided no basis to support a hypothesis of moral hazard in the exam behavior experiment, the procedure's pedagogical usefulness was noted. This paper presents the results of the authors' attempt to correct their perceived experimental design flaws and induce moral hazard with a new sample of beginning economics students. These results are analyzed, and conclusions are described in this paper. [Details...]
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228.
Balance of Payments
The balance of payments accounts of a country record the payments and receipts of the residents of the country in their transactions with residents of other countries. This article examines this and debunks the general misconception that the existence of a current account deficit is a sign of bad economic conditions. [Details...]
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229.
Competitiveness
Using living standards, this article examines how well the United States performs compared to other economies, how America performs in international trade, and whether America is doing the best that it can. [Details...]
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230.
Exchange Rates
This article describes the instability of exchange rates since the collapse of the Bretton Woods System and how, under the "floating" exchange rates we have had since 1973, exchange rates are determined by people buying and selling currencies in the foreign-exchange markets. [Details...]
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231.
Foreign Investment in the United States
This article tells how much foreign investment there is and of what and by whom. It explains why foreigners invest in the United States, whether it is good or bad, and the long term consequences of foreign investments. [Details...]
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232.
Free Trade
For more than two centuries, economists have steadfastly promoted free trade among nations as the best trade policy. Despite this intellectual barrage, many practical men and women of affairs continue to view the case for free trade skeptically, as an abstract argument made by ivory-tower economists with, at most, one foot on terra firma. Such people "know" that our vital industries must be protected from foreign competition.
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233.
Free Trade Agreements and Customs Unions
This article describes free trade and how it provides benefits but still hurts some people. While virtually all economists think free trade is desirable, they differ on how best to make the transition from tariffs, and quotas to free trade. [Details...]
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234.
Mercantilism
Mercantilism is economic nationalism for the purpose of building a wealthy and powerful state. This article describes the Mercantilist Period in the sixteenth century. [Details...]
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235.
Protectionism
This article explains cases in which protection could improve a nation's economic wellbeing, U.S. trade, voluntary export restrictions, and discusses fair trade and unfair trade. [Details...]
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236.
Sanctions
This article discusses purposes of economic sanctions, types of sanctions, effectiveness of sanctions, and the future of sanctions. [Details...]
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237.
Capital Flight
This article explains what capital flight is and the types of it there are and who it effects. Different options are suggested to reduce capital flight or for governments to limit capital flight. [Details...]
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239.
Third World Debt
This article describes the history of third world debt and how it grew in the seventies and discusses to whom the debt is owed. [Details...]
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242.
The Theory of Investment
This article covers Capital versus Investment, Irving Fisher's Theory of Investment, The Clark-Knight-Ramsey Crusonia, John Maynard Keynes's Internal Rate of Return, Jorgensen's Optimization Theory, Marginal Adjustment Costs and Tobin's q, and The Aftalion-Clark Accelerator.
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243.
Population
This article discusses population by focusing on population aging, fluctuations in general size, and population and development. [Details...]
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244.
Comparable Worth
Should a truck driver earn more than a telephone operator, or an engineer more than a librarian? Questions like these are largely resolved in the labor market by the forces of supply and demand. This article examines the wage gap and the effects of comparable worth. [Details...]
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245.
Conscription
This article examines whether a military draft is a necessary and fair thing for a government to enforce or whether it was more sensible for the U.S. to institute the public policy of an all-volunteer force. [Details...]
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246.
Discrimination
Because government penalties against discrimination by business make headlines and market penalties do not, the popular wisdom holds that only government stands between individuals and unfair discrimination by business. While governments practicing unfair discrimination face occasional losses only if their activities attract public disfavor, the losses incurred by businesses mount with each and every sale.
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247.
Gender Gap
When economists speak of the "gender gap," these days they usually are referring to systematic differences in the outcomes that men and women achieve in the labor market. These differences come in the percentages of men and women in the labor force, the types of occupations they choose, and the difference in the average incomes of men and women. These economic gender gaps have been a major issue in the women's movement and a major issue for economists. [Details...]
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248.
Human Capital
This article explains how schooling, a computer training course, expenditures of medical care, and lectures on the virtues of punctuality and honest are all part of what is called human capital. [Details...]
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249.
Immigration
Immigration is a major component of demographic change in the United States. This article shows how immigrants affect the labor market, native earnings, and the economy. [Details...]
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250.
Job Safety
This article explains how, contrary to popular belief, employers have many incentives to make workplaces safe, and disputes the fact that if government were not regulating job safety, workplaces would be unsafe. [Details...]
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251.
Labor Unions
This article explains how labor unions are simply cartels that raise wages above competitive levels by capturing monopolies over who companies can hire and what they must pay. [Details...]
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252.
Minimum Wages
This article explains the history of the minimum wage laws and how minimum wage laws can set laws, but they cannot guarantee jobs. [Details...]
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253.
Wages and Working Conditions
CEOs of multinational corporations, exotic dancers, and children with lemonade stands have at least one thing in common. They all expect a return for their effort. Most workers get that return in a subtle and ever-changing combination of money wages and working conditions. This article describes how they changed for the typical U.S. worker during the twentieth century.
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255.
Unemployment
An encyclopedia entry describing unemployment and giving statistics on how it is defined and measured. [Details...]
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257.
Immigration to the United States
This article focuses on the basic data sources available, the variation in the volume over time, the reasons immigration occurred, nativism and U.S. immigration policy, the characteristics of the immigrant stream, the effects on the United States economy, and the experience of immigrants in the U.S. labor market. [Details...]
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258.
Antitrust
This encyclopedia entry explains the history of antitrust laws and the effects of it. [Details...]
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259.
Crime
The decision to commit a crime, like any other economic decision, can be analyzed as a choice among alternative combinations of costs and benefits. This article examines this concept and gives examples.
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260.
Law and Economics
This article explores how the economic analysis of law deals with legal rules, whether made by legislatures or courts, from this second viewpoint- not as a way of handing out rewards and punishments to those who deserve them, but as a system of incentives intended to affect behavior. [Details...]
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261.
Liability
This article explains how, until recently, property and liability insurance was a small cost of doing business. But the substantial expansion in what legally consitutes liability over the past thirty years has greatly increased the cost of liability insurance for personal injuries. [Details...]
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262.
Occupational Licensing
Most Americans know that practicing medicine without a license is against the law. A careful analysis of licensing's effects across a broad range of occupations reveals some striking, and strikingly negative, similarities. [Details...]
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263.
Monetary Policy
This article dicusses the common goals, priorities, strategies, mechanics, tactics, and targets of monetary policy. [Details...]
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264.
Phillips Curve
The Phillips curve represents the relationship between the rate of inflation and the unemployment rate. This article describes A.W.H. Phillip's discovery that there was a consistent inverse, or negative, relationship between the rate of wage inflation and the rate of unemployment in the United Kingdom from 1861 to 1957. [Details...]
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265.
Business Cycles
The United States and all other modern industrial economies experience significant swings in economic activity. The combination of booms and recessions, the ebb and flow of economic activity, is called the business cycle.
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266.
Economic Growth
This article focuses on the concept of compounded growth in which things can multiply very quickly. Growth in Income Per Capita is explained with examples of the United States and Japan. Examples of ideas and growth are given as well. [Details...]
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267.
Forecasting and Econometric Models
An econometric model is one of the tools that economists use to forecast future developments in the economy. In the simplest terms, econometricians measure past relationships between variables such as consumer spending and gross national product, and then try to forecast how changes in some variables will affect the future course of others.
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268.
Great Depression
This article describes the Great Depression in depth as the most important economic event in American history. It caused enormous hardship for tens of millions of people and the failure of a large fraction of the nation's banks, businesses, and farms. [Details...]
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269.
Gross Domestic Product
Gross domestic product, the official measure of total output of goods and services in the U.S. economy, represents the capstone and grand summary of the world's best system of economic statistics. [Details...]
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272.
Investment
This article explains what investment is, how it is volatile, and that it contributes to economic growth, roughly for one-sixth of the gross national product. [Details...]
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273.
Productivity
This article describes the aspects of productivity with regard to the United States. It describes lagging investment, innovation, and skills when discussing productivity. [Details...]
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274.
Recessions
This article explains the problems with the definition of recessions and displays a table with the brief history of the Three Ds of Recession. [Details...]
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275.
Saving
To economists, saving means consuming less in the present in order to consume more in the future. This article discusses motives for saving, economic growth and demographic change, labor-supply decisions, economic policy, alternative explanations of the recent decline in U.S. saving, and the implications of low saving for baby boomers. [Details...]
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276.
Bank Runs
A run on a bank occurs when a large number of depositors, fearing that their bank will be unable to repay their deposits in full and on time, try to withdraw their funds immediately. This article describes how the danger of bank runs has been overstated. [Details...]
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277.
Competing Money Supplies
What would the consequences of applying the principle of laissez-faire to money? While the idea may seem strange to most people, economists have debated the question of competing money supplies off and on since Adam Smith's time. This article examines this age old question which has come into play in the economic world of today. [Details...]
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278.
Deposit Insurance
This article describes both sides of the federal deposit insurance reform which has come under greater public scrutiny more recently than at any time since its enactment in 1933. [Details...]
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279.
Federal Reserve System
The Federal Reserve System (the Fed) has been the central bank of the United States since it was created in 1913. The main purpose of a central bank is to regulate the supply of money and credit to the economy. This article focuses on the board of governors, the Fed's principal policy-making organization, as playing a key role in this process.
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280.
Gold Standard
The gold standard was a commitment by participating countries to fix the prices of their domestic currencies in terms of a specified amount of gold. This article explains the history of the Gold Standard and how it worked. [Details...]
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281.
Money Supply
An encyclopedia entry describing money supply which involves currencies and description of the Federal Reserve Policy. [Details...]
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282.
Savings and Loan Crisis
This article discusses the savings and loan crisis by explaining public policy causes with roots before 1980, public policy causes that began in the eighties, what things did not cause the savings and loan disaster, and the future of savings and loans. [Details...]
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283.
German Economic "Miracle"
After World War II the German economy lay in shambles. This article describes the economic condition before and during the war and how only ten years after the war people began talking about the German economic miracle. [Details...]
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284.
Gresham's Law
This article compares some modern interpretations of Gresham's Law and regards some as legitimate and others as entirely unwarranted. [Details...]
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286.
Keynesian Growth: the Cambridge version
The heroic entrepreneurs of Schumpeter are resurrected, only slightly less heroically, in The General Theory (1936) of J.M. Keynes. Investment, in the Keynesian system, is an independent affair contingent upon finance and the "animal spirits" of entrepreneurs. The issue is that Keynes did not extend his theory of demand-determined equilibrium into a theory of growth. This was left for the Cambridge Keynesians to explore. The first to come up with an extension was Sir Roy F. Harrod who (concurrently with Evsey Domar) introduced the "Harrod-Domar" Model of growth (Harrod in 1939, Domar in 1946).
[Details...]
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287.
Gross Domestic Product
This article defines GDP and shows how to calculate GDP as well as Real GDP and GNP. It tells about the differences between GDP and GNP. [Details...]
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289.
The Business Cycle
Defines the concept of the business cycle, how it is tracked, some significant expansions and contractions in history, and the debate over whether the business cycle has diminished in recent years. [Details...]
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290.
Unemployment Rate
Definition of the unemployment rate, the natural rate of unemployment, and limitations of the employment rate measurement. [Details...]
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291.
Aggregate Supply
Aggregate Supply measures the volume of goods and services produced within the economy at a given overall price level. This page shows a short-run and a long-run aggregate supply curve and explains each. [Details...]
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292.
Aggregate Demand
Aggregate demand is the total demand for goods and services produced in the economy over a period of time. This page explains related concepts and gives a graph of the aggregate demand curve. [Details...]
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293.
http://www.economics.unimelb.edu.au/rdixon/wlaw.html
This document deals with the following topics: the relevance of Walras Law for macroeconomic (and especially unemployment) theory; who was Walras?; an intuitive (and a formal) proof of Walras Law; Walras Law and disequilibrium states; Walras versus Keynes: Notional c.f. Effective Demands.
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294.
Competition
Competition for scarce resources is the core concept around which all modern economics is built. This article examines how competition effects everyone in their day to day life in the economic world. [Details...]
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295.
Monopoly
This article defines monopoly and gives instances and example where a monopoly is present. [Details...]
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296.
Price Controls
This article explains how government uses price controls to set maximum or minumum prices that firms must charge. It also discusses why they are imposed when many problems arise from them. [Details...]
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297.
Rent Control
Rent control, like all other government-mandate price controls, is a law placing a maximum price, or a "rent ceiling," on what landlord may charge tenants. This article discusses the effects of rent control, effects on tenants, and possible solutions. [Details...]
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299.
Supply and Demand
Describes how the price level is determined by the crossing of the supply and demand curves, and how a shift in supply or demand will influence the equilibrium price and quantity. [Details...]
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300.
Revenue and Demand
This article examines the demand curve in terms of revenue and shows graphs to explain total revenue and marginal revenue. [Details...]
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303.
What is Economics?
Detailed discussion on what economics is, why it works, samples of economic thining, and the link between economics and evolution. Also, includes practice questions and a suggested readings list. [Details...]
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304.
How Economists Think
Discussion on how economists think, wants vs needs, value and revealed preference, choice or necessity, and price theory. Also includes practice questions. [Details...]
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305.
The Production Function
This page covers the production function, marginal productivity, the law of diminishing returns, the law of variable proportions, and isoquant analysis. [Details...]
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306.
Returns to Scale
This article covers understanding returns to scale, Euler's theorem, homogeneity and hometheticity, and the intensive production function. [Details...]
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308.
The Elasticity of Substitution
This article covers measuring substitutability, elasticity of substitution under constant returns to scale, Cobb-Douglas production functions, constant elasticity of substitution (CES) production functions, and elasticities of substitution in multi-input cases. [Details...]
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310.
The Cost Function
This article covers the cost function, the derived demand for factors, factor price effects, output effects, costs and returns to scale, and factor price frontiers. [Details...]
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313.
Production - The Cowles Contributions
Here we shall consider the Neo-Walrasian theory of production developed by Tjalling C. Koopmans (1951) among others at the Cowles Commission during the 1940s and 1950s which relies heavily on use of activity analysis and convexity theory, notably the Separating Hyperplane Theorem. The more traditional Neoclassical theory of production is surveyed elsewhere. [Details...]
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315.
The Supply Curve
This article gives a brief indroduction and description of the supply curve and provides a table and graph for demonstration. [Details...]
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316.
Comparative Advantage
Introduces David Ricardo's principle of comparative advantage. B means of example, shows how specialization and trade result in more output. [Details...]
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317.
Production Possibilities
This in depth description of production possibilities gives a detailed account of what happens to the graphs and explains the shifts that occur. [Details...]
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319.
Monopoly
A monopoly is an industry in which there is one seller. Because it is the only seller, the monopolist faces a downward-sloping demand curve, the industry demand curve. This article explains whether a monopoly is desirable or not. [Details...]
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322.
Disaster and Recovery
Defeated in battle and ravaged by bombing in the course of World War II, Germany and Japan nevertheless made postwar recoveries that startled the world. Within ten years these nations were once again considerable economic powers. A decade later, each had not only regained prosperity but had also economically overtaken, in important respects, some of the war's victors. [Details...]
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323.
Defense
National defense is a public good. Once the government organizes the resources for national defense, it necessarily defends all residents against foreign aggressors. This article uses defense in describing the "free-rider" problem. [Details...]
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324.
Taxation, A Preface
This article explains why, in recent years taxation has been one of the most prominent and controversial topics in economic policy. It does this by discussing objectives of taxation, the U.S. tax system, recent tax policy changes, distribution of the tax burden, and current tax issues. [Details...]
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325.
Capital Gains Taxes
A capital gain or loss is the increase or decrease in the value of an asset price. This article explains capital gains in terms of taxes and discusses how it should be handled. [Details...]
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326.
Consumption Tax
This article tackles the debate over whether the United States should adopt a value-added tax similar to the ones that European countries have. It also examines the issue of whether to tax income or consumption. [Details...]
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327.
Corporate Taxation
The corporate income tax is the most poorly understood of all the major methods by which the United States government collects money. This article examines its history and the politically compelling arguments in favor of leaving the corporate income tax alone. [Details...]
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328.
Marginal Tax Rates
This article uses a table of maximum marginal tax rates on individual income in various countries to show how many countries significantly reduced their highest marginal tax rate by the end of the eighties decade. [Details...]
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329.
Negative Income Tax
This article explains the history of the Negative Income Tax and the problems that arose when trying to decide on a policy to implement it. [Details...]
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330.
Progressive Taxes
This article explains how the statutory tax rates misrepresent true progressivity, how progressive income taxes should be, and discusses the different types of taxes and changes that occur. [Details...]
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331.
Federal Budget
Since World War II the federal budget deficit has risen almost continually. This article explains the budget process and the commons problem with a historical outline of average budget deficits. [Details...]
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332.
Federal Debt
This article explains the various aspects of the federal debt including a table with figures from 1945-1990. [Details...]
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333.
Federal Deficit
The U.S. federal budget deficit is probably the world's most cited economic statistic. In recent years U.S. debt has risen at what is widely believed to be an alarming rate and has almost tripled since 1981. [Details...]
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334.
Fiscal Policy
Fiscal policy is the use of the government budget to affect an economy. When the government decides on the taxes it collects, the transfer payments it gives out, or the goods and services that ir purchases, it is engaging in fiscal policy. [Details...]
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335.
Government Spending
This article uses the charts of two countries, the United States and Sweden, to illustrate how government spending has grown quite rapidly in recent decades. [Details...]
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336.
Reaganomics
This article describes Reaganomics as the most serious attempt to change the course of U.S. economic policy of any administration since the New Deal and tells us why. [Details...]
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337.
Social Security
This article discusses the history of social security, the estimates of future expenses, and the implications and impact that the baby boom generation will have on the future of social security. [Details...]
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338.
Price as a Rationer
Sometimes the government is unwilling to let markets adjust to market-clearing prices. They instead establish price ceilings or price floors. This article goes on to explain what each one is. [Details...]
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339.
Pollution Controls
This article explains the regulatory standards of pollution controls, the cost of pollution controls, the economic effects of pollution controls, and market-based approach to pollution control. [Details...]
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341.
Austrian Economics
The major cornerstones of Austrian economics are methodological individualism, methodological subjectivism, and an emphasis on processes rather than on end states. This article describes each of these.
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342.
Keynesian Economics
This article explains the six principal tenets which seem central to Keynesianism, which is a theory of total spending in the economy and of its effects on output and inflation. [Details...]
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343.
Marxism
This article describes Karl Marx and Marxism which captures his theories and values regarding how the economy works. [Details...]
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344.
Monetarism
This article explains one of the principal monetarist propositions: sustained money growth in excess of the growth of output produces inflation; to end inflation or produce deflation, money growth must fall below the growth of output, as well as two more monetarist propositions. [Details...]
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345.
Neoclassical Economics
The article outlines the framework of Neoclassical Economics and discusses attempts to discredit it, how it conceptualized households and firms as rational actors, and an assessment of the values associated with it. [Details...]
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346.
New Classical Macroeconomics
This article portrays the general differences in perspective, current policy discussions, discusses determinants of consumption and investment, as well as tax cuts. [Details...]
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347.
New Keynesian Economics
This article discusses the disagreement between new classical and new Keynesian economists, the staggering of prices, coordination failure, efficiency wages, and policy implications. [Details...]
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348.
Public Choice Theory
Public choice theory is a branch of economics that developed from the study of taxation and public spending. This article discusses government action in relation to government failure, underpinnings of public choice theory, and examines public choice economists and how they influence legislation. [Details...]
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349.
Rational Expectations
This article describes the influences between expectations and outcomes, the efficient markets theory of stock prices, the permanent income theory of consumption, tax-smoothing models, expectational error models of the business cycle, and design of macroeconomic policies. [Details...]
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351.
The Austrian Theory of Capital
This article covers Capital and Time, Jevons's Amount of Investment, Bohm-Bawerk's Average Period of Production, Wicksell's Optimal Production Period, Hayek's Disequilibrium Theory, Hicks's Flows, and Debates on Austrian Capital Theory. [Details...]
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352.
The General Glut Controversy and Say's Law
In a simple shoe-hat world, at any one time, three possible situations may arise: (1) there may be a sufficient amount of shoes and hats to satisfy all demand; (2) there may be too many shoes offered on the market - implying too great a demand for hats; and (3) there may be too many hats and not enough shoes. Situations (2) and (3) are situations when markets have not made precise the allocations. However, the essence of Say's Law is that there can never be too much of both shoes and hats. A shoemaker would not make more shoes if he did not desire more hats. Therefore, Say's Law concludes, general gluts cannot exist. [Details...]
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353.
The Neoclassicals
This article covers the Marginalist Revolution, the Neoclassical Theory of Value, and the Neoclassical Family of Schools.
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