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71. Consumption, Durable Goods, and Transaction Costs

Author:
Robert F. Martin
Publication Date:
01-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
We study consumption of durable and nondurable goods when the durable good is subject to transaction costs. In the model, agents derive utility from a service flow of a durable good and a consumption flow of a nondurable good. The key feature of the model is the existence of a fixed transaction cost in the durable good market. The fixed cost induces an inaction region in the purchase of the durable good. More importantly, the inability to adjust the durable stock induces variation in consumption of the nondurable good over the inaction region. The variation is a function of the degree of complementarity between durable and nondurable goods in the period utility function, the rate of intertemporal substitution, and a precautionary motive induced by incomplete markets. We test the model using the PSID. Housing serves as the durable good. The data indicate an increase in consumption before moving to a smaller house and a decrease in consumption before moving to a larger house. This result is consistent with the model when there exists complementarity between the durable and nondurable good or when there is a strong precautionary effect.
Topic:
Economics, Industrial Policy, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States

72. Living at the Edge: America's Low–Income Children and Families

Author:
Hsien-Hen Lu, Julian Palmer, Younghwan Song, Mary Clare Lennon, and J. Lawrence Aber
Publication Date:
10-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University
Abstract:
By analyzing data from the Current Population Survey March Supplements, Living at the Edge explores the following questions about children in low-income families in the United States: What are the overall changes in the low-income and poverty rates for children over the past quarter century? How has the population of children in low-income families changed over the past decade? Which children are more likel to live in low-income famlies? How have changes in parental employment status affected the likelihood children living in low-income families? What are the state by state variations in child low-income and poverty rates, and how have these changed in the last decade? How does a more inclusive definition of family income and expenses affect our understanding of the poverty and near-poverty rates of children in low-income families?
Topic:
Economics, Human Welfare, and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
United States

73. Containing Wildland Fire Costs: Improving Equipment and Services Acquisition

Author:
Frank Fairbanks, Allan V. Burman, Gail Christopher, Patrick J. Kelly, Lyle Laverty, Keith Mulrooney, Paul Posner, and Charles Wise
Publication Date:
09-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA)
Abstract:
Wildland fire - related acquisition management programs of the five federal land management agencies are big business. For example, Forest Service wildfire preparedness and suppression contracting costs reached almost $800 million in FY 2002. Even at a lower level, these costs significantly affect other land management programs and their funding. Thus, searching for and taking advantage of methods to achieve cost containment of escalating wildland fire acquisition programs take on added value. That is the basic premise of this Academy report.
Topic:
Environment, Government, and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
United States

74. Protecting the Homeland: Lessons from Prior Government Reorganizations

Publication Date:
04-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA)
Abstract:
This might well have been the greeting card on the desk of the nation's first Secretary of Homeland Security: Officially launched January 24, 2003 with 180,000 employees and a budget of nearly $40 billion, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is, at its inception, the third largest cabinet agency in the U.S. government. No U.S. government reorganization of this magnitude has been accomplished since the creation of the Department of Defense following World War II.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Government, and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
United States

75. A Breath of Fresh Air: Reviving the New Source Review Program

Author:
Don Kettl, Peter Harkness, Lisa Heinzerling, DeWitt John, Howard M. Messner, Robert Terrell, Christophe Tulou, and Alfred M. Zuck
Publication Date:
04-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA)
Abstract:
The New Source Review program (NSR) is a critic al tool enacted by Congress 25 years ago to protect public health and improve the nation's air quality. But, as applied to existing facilities, NSR is not working as Congress intended. Thus NSR should be fundamentally reformed and strongly enforced against past violations by existing facilities.
Topic:
Environment, Government, and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
United States

76. NAFTA and Small Business Competitiveness in Mexico: The Impacts of Free Trade, Macroeconomic Policy, and Firm Management

Author:
Jerry Haar, Catherine Leroy-Beltrán, and Oscar Beltrán
Publication Date:
04-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The North-South Center, University of Miami
Abstract:
Despite compelling evidence that, for the most part , benefits from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) have exceeded its costs in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, the policy debate continues in all three countries as to whether the accord has produced more “winners” or “losers.” In the case of Mexico, the focus country of this research project, both the Institutional Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional — PRI) and the National Action Party (Partido Acción Nacional — PAN) have been supportive of NAFTA.
Topic:
Economics, Industrial Policy, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States, Canada, North America, and Mexico

77. U.S. Climate Policy After Kyoto: Elements for Success

Author:
Daniel Bodansky
Publication Date:
04-2002
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
With the U.S. withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol and the agreement's likely entry into force, it appears that the United States and the rest of the world will go their separate ways on climate change. The United States now faces a stark choice: Do nothing, join Kyoto, or come up with a policy of its own. The first option would be unwise, environmentally and politically. The second would require an embarrassing flip- flop by the Bush administration. This leaves the third option: proposing a credible U.S. approach separate from Kyoto.
Topic:
Energy Policy, Environment, Globalization, Industrial Policy, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States

78. Three Worlds of Working Time: Policy and Politics in Work-time Patterns of Industrialized Countries

Author:
Brian Burgoon and Phineas Baxandall
Publication Date:
09-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Given the underdeveloped attention to political and policy origins of aggregate work time patterns in the work-time literature, and the lack of any significant attention to work-time in the broader comparative political economy literature, this paper has pursues a broad mandate: to bring more politics into the study of work-time, and work-time into the study of politics. Using data allowing better comparison among OECD countries, we argue that study of working time needs to consider annual hours per employee and per working-age person, shaped by a range of social as well as direct work-time policies. We also argue that union interest in work-time reduction is more ambiguous than customarily supposed, with union interests likely mediated by a range of other conditions, especially female labor market participation and female union membership. Finally, we argue that attention to party systems and policy clusters should begin with consideration of Social Democratic, Liberal and Christian Democratic worlds of work time. We support these arguments with cross-section time-series study of 18 OECD countries, and brief qualitative studies of work-time in Finland, the United States, and the Netherlands.
Topic:
Economics and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, and Netherlands

79. How Shareholder Reforms Can Pay Foreign Policy Dividends

Author:
James J. Shinn and Peter Gourevitch
Publication Date:
06-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Corporate governance—the rules that govern the relationship between managers and shareholders—belongs on the foreign policy agenda of American decision-makers. The vigorous debates underway about corporate governance, both at home and abroad, present an opportunity for the United States to advance its foreign policy goals of enhancing free trade and financial stability.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Economics, Government, Industrial Policy, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States

80. Outsourcing and Inequality

Author:
Paul Brenton, Bob Anderton, and Eva Oscarsson
Publication Date:
10-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS)
Abstract:
This paper brings together and analyses the results of empirical analyses which, in contrast to most other studies, find that trade has been a significant cause of labour market inequality in various industrialised countries. The approach is based upon the concept of outsourcing – whereby the low-skill parts of the production chain are 'outsourced' to low-wage countries. A distinguishing feature of the empirical work is the use of highly detailed trade data, which allow imports from high- and low-wage countries to be separately identified at the industry level. Using cost minimisation framework, we show that imports from low-wage countries have made a significant contribution to the decline in the wage-bill share and/or relative employment of less-skilled workers in the UK, the USA, Sweden and Italy. We also show how the country-specific characteristics of outsourcing can lead to quite different inequality outcomes in different countries. In line with other studies, we also find that technology has played an important role in causing the increase in inequality in many countries. However, there is also some evidence that some of the rapid increase in the application of new technologies in recent decades has been trade-induced through mechanisms such as 'defensive innovation'.
Topic:
Economics, Industrial Policy, International Trade and Finance, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States and United Kingdom