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In this article, Maryland's non-legal-tender paper money emissions between 1765 and 1775 are reconstructed to determine quantities outstanding and redemption dates, providing a substantial correction to the literature. Over 80 per cent of this paper money's current market value was expected real asset present value and under 20 per cent was liquidity premium. It was primarily a real barter asset and not a fiat currency. The liquidity premium was positively related to the amount of paper money per capita in circulation. This paper money traded below face value due to time-discounting, rather than depreciation. Past scholars have simply confused depreciation with time-discounting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses Hawaiian groups' resistance to globalization. Rebellion begins when youth started to fight for the environment and their rights. Community members opposed the construction of golf courses, luxury condominiums, hotels and resorts. Local residents fought the construction of a geothermal power plant in Puna and the missile-launching in Ka'Ü district. In 1997, Stephen Yamashiro wanted to lease 4, 400 acres of Hawaii's Island to Oji Paper Ltd. Several organizations opposed the plan and in November, 1997, State Board of Land and Natural Resources rejected it. The author states that these events indicate the emergence of a more democratic politics on Hawaii Island and illustrates how local communities can set their own parameters for economic development.

Discusses paper money issues in the American colonies from 1720 to 1774. Misinterpretation of the colonial monetary policies; Overview of the political background of British monetary policies in the colonies; Controversy over colonial practices during the period.

A feature of U.S. postwar business cycle experience that is by now widely documented is the tendency of the spread between the respective interest rates on commercial paper and Treasury bills to widen shortly before the onset of recessions. By contrast, the paper-bill spread did not anticipate the 1990-1991 recession. Empirical work presented in this paper supports two (not mutually exclusive) explanations for this departure from past experience. First, at least part of the paper-bill spread's predictive content with respect to business cycle fluctuations stems from its role as an indicator of monetary policy, but the 1990-1991 recession was unusual in postwar U.S. experience in not being immediately precipitated by tight monetary policy. Second, movements of the spread during the few years just prior to the 1990-1991 recession were strongly influenced by changes in the relative quantities of commercial paper, bank CDs, and Treasury bills that occurred for reasons unrelated to the business cycle. This latter finding in particular sheds light on the important role of imperfect substitutability of different short-term debt instruments in investors' portfolios, and highlights the burdens associated with using relative interest rate relationships as business cycle indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Business improvement districts (BIDs) have become increasingly prevalent entities in urban neighbourhoods and communities. BIDs are non-profit organisations established to deliver public services and improve economic conditions by imposing additional assessments on property owners. BIDs are invariably intertwined with the communities they are established to serve, and as a result understanding the complex relationship between BIDs and communities is imperative. This paper seeks to evaluate the role historical community development and community actors play in the development and implementation of BIDs by utilising a case study analysis of two BIDs in the New York City borough of Staten Island. Findings from this study reveal that historical patterns of community development are the principal determinant of the organisational objectives and budget allocation of BIDs. Further research concerning the interconnection between communities and BIDs is also suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic effects of public policy alternatives often are analyzed with simulation models. The value of simulation is enhanced when model parameters can credibly be estimated econometrically. But unrestricted estimation can be expected to result in problematic estimates, for example, estimated parameters contrary in sign to what economic theory dictates. The information contract curve (ICC), developed by Leamer, provides a flexible means to impose regularity on estimated parameters at minimum-likelihood cost. We extend the ICC methodology, using conically uniform priors, and apply it to measuring the welfare costs of environmental regulations in the U.S. pulp, paper, and paperboard industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the development of the market economy, agricultural trade has become more and more significant for the development of the agricultural economy, which has triggered people's further thinking and exploration on the impact of agricultural trade on agricultural carbon emissions. This paper takes the measurement of trade implied carbon as the carbon dioxide emission index under the impact of agricultural trade and analyzes the impact of trade implied carbon and implied carbon balance on carbon emission. Taking the impact of Sino-US agricultural trade as an empirical background, this paper measures the impact of environmental changes in agricultural trade opening on China's agricultural development and its carbon emissions, so as to predict changes in China's regional agricultural carbon emissions performance. After calculation, it is found that the scale of China's exports has decreased by 0.089%, which is lower than the decline of 0.361% in the United States. The trade conflict has a significant impact on China's import and export structure. Under the scenario of mutual tariffs on agricultural products, China's exports to the United States are expected to decrease by 6.28%, while China's imports from the United States decreased by 13.02%. The Sino-US agricultural trade dispute will reduce China's carbon emissions by 0.013% and the United States' carbon emissions by 0.024%, which is related to the negative impact on the economy. Improving the performance of agricultural carbon emissions is not only the need for the green and sustainable development of the agricultural economy but also conducive to improving the international competitiveness of agricultural products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a list of titles of Working Papers on business and economy in the U.S. "Data Revisions and the Identification of Monetary Policy Shocks," by Dean Croushore and Charles L. Evans; "Non-Exclusive Contracts, Collateralized Trade, and a Theory of Exchange," by Yaron Leitner; "The Rise of the Skilled City," by Edward L. Glaeser and Albert Saiz.

In 1963 economists Milton Friedman and David Meiselman published a paper for the Commission on "Money and Credit," in which they attempt to test the relative predictive power of Keynesian and monetary theories of business fluctuations. Their methods and conclusions were sharply disputed in papers by scholars Donald Hester, Albert Ando and Franco Modigliani, and Michael DePrano and Thomas Mayer. The purpose is to review this controversy. The method is the simple one of first replicating the studies over the original sample periods and then examining the postsample performance of the competing equations. On a sociological level there can be little doubt that this controversy was and continues to be, enormously valuable. Many economists have been stimulated to work on the questions disputed by the monetarist and Keynesian combatants and it is probably correct to argue that two models of the U.S. economy are a direct outgrowth of the controversy. What has been missing from this continuing controversy, however, is an ex post evaluation of the earlier empirical work.

The article discusses the different policy responses for unemployment benefits and jobs subsidies in a group of noncoastal states east of the Mississippi River that they call the eastern heartland. The seven principles that the authors used to assess the economic policy proposal are explored. Some of the rich theories of the possible solutions to the economic malaise of the eastern heartland are also offered.

The article comments on the underlying theory and the conclusions on economic policy derived from the proposals by Professor Ragnar Frisch for a thorough study of balance of payments broken down by countries and currencies. Several countries, short of foreign exchange, balance their imports by state control at the amount available from exports and other sources; any increase in exports enables them to import more, any decrease in exports forces them to import less. In the U.S., on the other hand, the volume of imports is determined by private importers independently of the reserve position of the country; the total volume of imports is below the level determined by national income and relative prices, and no change of exports would influence the actual volume of imports. In these conditions, discrimination against imports from the U.S. will increase world trade.

Copyright of European Mirror / Európai Tükör is the property of National University of Public Service and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Max-Planck-Institut für Gesellschaftsforschung Discussion Papers is the property of Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Purpose Two questions broadly drove this research: Donald Trump promised to fix the economy and create jobs, and he is ending or renegotiating trade treaties. Is he creating more jobs? How can Trump create a more inclusive economy? The paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approach This paper closely examines Trump’s economic policies and draws from past Democratic and Republication track records to explain how Trump’s policies will contribute to greater income inequality.Findings By all measures, President Trump fails on measures of equality, diversity, and inclusion.Originality/value This original paper examines the implications of the Trump administration’s policies in the areas of tax cuts (for small- and medium-sized enterprises rather than large corporations), incentives to support small business growth, entrepreneurship training, education and skills training (to retool Americans), and infrastructure spending. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses economics research and teaching frameworks in the United States by examining how knowledge is produced; the strengths and flaws of heterodox economic theory; and how students are trained, especially for careers in economic policy. We challenge the meaning of established terminology such as ‘heterodoxy’ and ‘mainstream.’ Three major reasons are suggested for the disappointing reality that pluralist economics among academic institutions, the broader public, and a new generation of economists has not happened: 1) neoclassical hegemony; 2) weakness in heterodox theory, and 3) rigidity of pedagogy and training in economics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the effect on income of Phase II of the wage-price control program of the United States. Several discussants commented on the issue of income shares under the Phase II program. R. A. Gordon, William Branson, and others noted that, with productivity growing exceptionally fast because of the rapid cyclical expansion expected in the economy, profit margins would widen so much that some cost absorption by business would still permit the profit share to expand. Arthur Okun noted that Perry's neutrality was defined as the state of income shares that would prevail in the absence of the program and that the cyclical expansion of profit margins that we are experiencing would have occurred anyhow. Gardner Ackley argued that we did not know enough about what has happened to price-cost relations in recent years to take any strong position about what income shares should be. Therefore Perry's neutrality concept should not override the need to slow inflation, and some cost absorption was appropriate as a way to help accomplish this. James Duesenberry and Michael Posner felt that the most serious practical problem was not the question of existing income shares but rather delivering on the promise to slow prices noticeably. The trade unions are reluctant to accept wage controls because they have little faith that the inflation will slow down. Differing views were expressed on the use of profit margin ceilings in Phase II. Alan Greenspan pointed out that the application of the rules on the basis of the margins of individual firms would hold down overall prices and margins more than people thought.

A stochastic framework for coordination of macroeconomic policies is introduced in this paper. It is suggested that: (i) measures of policy accountability should allow for the climate of uncertainty that surrounds policy decisions, and (ii) most models of aggregate economic activity impose arbitrary specifications of uncertainty that do not appear to be empirically justifiable. Ambiguities in interpreting the Humphrey-Hawkins reports of policy authorities are sketched in section II; a proposal for maximizing the ex ante prospects of policy objectives is illustrated in section III; finally, nonstationary allocations of uncertainty are discussed in sections IV and V. This paper provides a brief survey of ongoing work by members of the Federal Reserve Board staff on the role of uncertainty in policy forecasts. It suggests that policy discussion could be improved by more explicit consideration of the allocation of uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers insights on the industrial symbiosis an the field of ecology in the U.S. It introduces regional studies to industrial symbiosis and the field of ecology to which it belongs, and then summarizes each of the papers contributing to the issue. It presents conclusions about the potential overlapping between industrial symbiosis and regional development which claims that industrial symbiosis (IS) does have potential to generate regional environmental economic benefits. Nevertheless, increasing imperatives for regional sustainable economic development may dictate that IS system-scale approach to resource efficiency receive serious exploration.

The article discusses the effects of low inflation on unemployment in the U.S. A research by the economists George Perry and William Brainard suggests that a large long-run increases in unemployment from permanent reductions in inflation to zero. It was also found that a permanent reduction in annual inflation from two percent to zero would increase unemployment by 1.5% points. In their benchmark ignored expectations simulations, the researchers found that a decline in annual inflation from 2.6% to zero has yielded a 1.5% point increase in unemployment.

The article discusses the paper "Design for a Streamlined War Economy" written by economist Abba P. Lerner in 1942. Topics include the need for stable prices in 1941, when the U.S. entered World War II, the use of price system instead of bureaucratic rationing, and ideas on savings provisions and tax policy. Attention is paid to the book "How to Pay for the War" by John Maynard Keynes, the global policy organization RAND Corporation, and the Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System (PPBS).

The article presents a commentary on the paper by Jesse Rothstein about the expansion of unemployment insurance (UI) benefit durations in the U.S. One of the authors stresses that the paper appealed to her as it addresses a certain question that is important for macroeconomic policy. Another author emphasizes that the findings of Rothstein on the impact of UI on a worker's labor supply are robust. They both stress the significance of measuring the costs and benefits of UI properly.

The importance of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and environmental policy stringency (EPS) in affecting environmental quality is gaining great attention in the literature. However, none of the existing studies has thought to investigate their combined effects on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Additionally, the individual investigations into the nexuses EPU-emissions and EPS-emissions primarily took a symmetric assumption between these variables into consideration. The current paper is an early attempt to close these gaps by examining the combined effects of economic policy uncertainty and environmental policy stringency on CO2 emissions within asymmetric (nonlinear) frameworks in China and the United States (US). The empirical findings indicate that an improvement in EPU degrades the environmental quality in both countries. However, a negative shift in EPU decreases emissions in China while increasing them in the US. In terms of EPS, the estimates in the two nations led to similar results. A positive change in EPS is conducive to fewer emissions, whereas a negative change worsens environmental damage. These findings still hold with the sensitivity analysis using ecological footprint as an alternative gauge of environmental destruction. This study, therefore, suggests that both nations adopt stricter environmental policies. Additionally, Chinese policymakers should work to lessen uncertainty shocks, while the US government should promote more transparent economic policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article comments on three papers within the issue: "Long-Term Effects of Government Deficits on the U.S. Output Potential," by George von Furstenburg, "Capital Formation and the Recent Productivity Slowdown," by Peter Clark, and "U.S. Productivity Growth Recession: History and Prospects for the Future," by Michael McCarthy. The author discusses each article and criticizes their shortcomings. He looks at von Furstenburg's use of the Phelps-Shell model of dynamic economic growth and notes the usefulness of neoclassical growth theory. The author feels that his discussion on the effects of government deficits on output growth or productivity represent a fruitful economic analysis innovation.

The article sheds light on commercial banking in the United States during the sixties. The article makes the conclusion that if the trends emerging in the late 1950s and in 1960 are not reversed by major changes in economic conditions or tax and regulatory policy, then the commercial banks will be unable to play as important a role in financing the 1960s as they have done in previous years. The article's conclusion is based on the expectation that in all years, except those of recession, bank deposits will continue to expand at a slower rate than the growth of the gross national product.

This article comments on a paper by Stephen Cecchetti which outlined and evaluated the challenges of designing short- and medium-run monetary policy for controlling inflation in the U.S. The paper reached four significant conclusions: (1) forecasts of inflation are inaccurate; (2) inflation forecasting rules and the dynamic multipliers are temporally unstable; (3) even if dynamic multipliers are assumed stable, they are imprecisely estimated; and (4) an objective function targeting nominal income is more robust than an objective function targeting inflation. Cecchetti's paper reported large root-mean-square errors (RMSE) for inflation forecasts. It showed that these large RMSE obtain for commercial forecasts, naive time-series forecasts, and bivariate regression forecasts constructed using a large set of inflation leading indicators. He also reported dramatic evidence of temporal instability in forecasting rules. Using tests for time-varying regression coefficients, Cecchetti investigated stability in the univariate auto-regression explaining inflation and bivariate forecasting models constructed from leading indicators of inflation. The null hypothesis of stability is rejected in all of the models.

Reports on the ruling of the U.S. Department of Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control that removes government restrictions on papers from authors in embargoed countries. Contention of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; Basis for the ruling; Implications of the ruling for authors living in countries that are under U.S. trade embargoes.

This paper considers the macroeconomics of the oil price for the United States. It investigates the impact of large oil price hikes in a standard VAR framework by introducing a new Markov switching based oil price specification. The explanatory power of this new specification is compared to that of a number of prominent non-linear specifications. The key findings are: (1) the new oil price specification is appropriate in both empirical and theoretical terms and allows for a well-founded distinction between "large" and "normal" oil price increases. (2) The observed impact of oil price shocks on real GDP growth is largely attributable to no fewer than three large oil price increases, namely those of 1973-74, 1979 and 1991, while variables such as consumer and import prices are also affected by normal oil price increases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article comments on a paper by Hanming Fang and Michael Keane which assessed the impact of welfare reforms that were introduced in the U.S. during the mid-1990s. A key problem in this literature is how to parameterize the reforms in a way that allows them to be clearly distinguished from other changes that occurred at the same time, including a major economic boom and changes in closely related policies, such as the minimum wage and the earned income tax credit. Fang and Keane have done an impressive job of coding detailed state-level policy changes, with much more sophistication than previous papers. For instance, rather than use a dummy variable to indicate whether a time limit is in effect, they try to find variables that differentiate between the anticipatory behavioral effects of time limits and the effects that occur once enough time has passed that some women are facing benefit losses due to time limits. In fact, many would argue that Fang and Keane's approach to this problem is wrongly specified from the start, since they are trying to estimate a final outcome with panel data created from sequential cross sections. Generally, the authors have performed a useful service in carefully coding state-specific changes in the components of welfare reform and are creative in trying to use this information to identify policy effects better than the existing literature has.

The article offers a discussion of the different policy responses for unemployment benefits and jobs subsidies in the U.S. An evidence in the literature on the causal relationship between unemployment and opioid use and the national uniformity of the Earned Income Tax Credit and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program are explored. The political economy objections to place-based policies and the potential covariates of the spatial variation of employment-to-population ratio are also outlined.

This paper empirically investigates US fiscal policy sustainability and cyclicality in an empirical structure that allows fiscal policy responses to exhibit asymmetric behavior. We investigate this over two quarterly intervals, both of which begin in 1955:1. The short sample ends in 1995:2 and is most similar to the one used by Bohn (Q J Econ 113:949-963, 1998), whereas the full sample ends in 2013:3. Our estimation results show that the full sample period is sufficiently different from the short sample period, that the asymmetric (nonlinear) empirical models used in this paper are important and that the sustainability of US government debt topic needed to be revisited. Indeed, the short sample provides evidence of fiscal policy sustainability in line with Bohn's (1998) findings. However, when considering the full sample, US fiscal policy is found sustainable during good economic times only according to the best fitting nonlinear model, but unsustainable for all specifications studied during times of distress. With regard to cyclicality, both samples show policy is asymmetric. Moreover, both samples show countercyclical policy during times of distress and the full sample results show some evidence that policy may be procyclical during good economic times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to show that, at the very beginning of his career, Buchanan was interested in concrete issues related to the economic situation in the South rather than with abstract and philosophical works in public finance. We examine the published and unpublished articles, reviews and replies that Buchanan wrote between 1949 and 1952 on federalism. By putting what Buchanan wrote in the intellectual, academic and political context of the period, we put forward four factors which we believe are important to understand Buchanan's ideas. First, Buchanan defended the intervention of the federal government to redistribute, in the form of equalizing grants, income from rich to poor regions. Second, as a consequence, for Buchanan, such redistribution was an ethical necessity that should precede any consideration of efficiency. Even more important, fiscal justice was a precondition without which a competitive or free market system could not function properly. Third, at least during that period, Buchanan appears to have been interested primarily in practical, concrete problems, rather than in pure and abstract questions. Finally, a fourth and crucial point is that Buchanan insisted on the need for federal government intervention to industrialize the South, a stance that stands in stark contrast to policies the Nashville Agrarians defended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Federal Reserve sets targets for interest rates which it enforces through direct market intervention. These targets are changed periodically. In this paper, we develop a term structure model in which the short rate is subject to a control which keeps it close to a target which changes from time to time. The probability of target changes is not constant in the model, but changes as a function of observables. The model performs well at explaining the shifts in the yield curve that accompany target changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the economic impact of discretionary fiscal and monetary actions taken in the United States during 2020 and 2021. The fiscal actions are The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, or the "CARES" Act, passed in March 2020; The Consolidated Appropriations Act, passed in December 2020; and The American Rescue Plan Act, passed in March 2021. The paper focuses on the impact of the "economic impact payments" that underlie these fiscal actions. The paper also examines discretionary monetary policy actions taken during the same period. The overall implication is that there is a need to return to policies that increase economic growth and stability, including rules-based fiscal and monetary policy, rather than to continue with these one-time discretionary actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether returns on 49 different industry portfolios in the United States (US) expose significantly to the US economic policy uncertainty (EPU) even after controlling for the market and firm-specific risk factors. We find that the US EPU can load significantly against the returns of 15 industry portfolios which include stocks from heavy manufacturing and export dependent industries. However, further asset pricing tests show that the US EPU cannot improve the ability of a benchmark model to capture average industry returns. Additionally, the impact of EPU is time-dependent and significant only during specific periods which are different for each industry. Using a portfolio analysis, we also test whether EPU can forecast future returns. Results imply that the return-EPU relationship is almost flat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper relies upon the 'what's the problem represented to be?' approach to policy analysis to interrogate key representations of human trafficking implicit in the UK government's anti-trafficking policy. It identifies six policy vectors, or representations, of human trafficking embedded within the policy, including organized crime, 'illegal' immigration, and victim assistance as three primary vectors; sexual exploitation/prostitution, poverty in countries of victims' origin, and isolated instances of labour law infringements as three secondary vectors. In addition, a series of assumptions, which underlie the current interpretation of trafficking, are also identified. By exploring what the problem of human trafficking is represented to be, the paper also provides an insight into what remains obscured within the context of the dominant policy frameworks. In doing so, it highlights the role of state-capital entanglements in normalizing exploitation of trafficked, smuggled and 'offshored' labour, and critiques the UK's anti-trafficking policy for manufacturing doubt as to the structural causes of human trafficking within the context of neoliberalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section introduces the articles which appeared in the March 1972 issue of the "Brookings Papers on Economic Activity." In the first article, William Branson estimates that the 1971 currency re-alignment, when fully effective, will bolster the United States merchandise trade balance by $7 billion to $8 billion a year. The effect of the devaluation of the U.S. dollar on the trade balance depends on how much it raises the dollar prices of U.S. imports, how much it lowers the prices of U.S. exports in terms of the currencies of buyers, and how responsive both buyers and sellers are to price changes -- that is, how large their price elasticities are. As Branson views the process, exporters set the price tags on tradeable goods in terms of their own currency. The paper by F. Thomas Juster and Paul Wachtel examines the effects of inflation and of transitory changes in income on consumer saving and spending behavior, with particular reference to the inflationary experience of recent years. The authors seek to explain consumer demand in several different ways, relying on both subjective data drawn from surveys of households and objective economic variables such as income, relative prices, and the rates of unemployment and of inflation. In the third article, Arthur Okun reaffirms analytically the desirability of an activist fiscal-monetary strategy. Like other Keynesian economists, Okun believes that fiscal and monetary policy should be shifted toward stimulus or restraint in light of observed and predicted economic fluctuations.

The article presents a summary of the papers presented at a round table conference on problems of the U.S. commercial policy. The Chairman remarked that two types of conflict had emerged in American commercial policy: the conflict between their foreign trade policy and certain of the objectives in New Deal domestic policy, and the conflict of their foreign policy with the foreign policies of the so-called "totalitarian" states. Professor Frank A. Southard, Jr.'s paper states that the trade policy of Germany has not been more successful than that of the United States. It has not succeeded in driving American exports out of foreign markets, nor has it prevented the United States from finding countries willing to support a non-discriminatory trade policy. Trade agreements have already been made with twenty countries, accounting for about 60 per cent of their foreign trade. E.D. Durand's paper dealt with "The European War and the Import Trade of the United States." The first World War resulted in a quantitative decrease in American imports, and sharp changes in the commodity composition of the trade. There was a marked decline (in terms of value) in the percentage of total imports furnished by Europe and a corresponding decline in the imports of the finished manufactured goods which are the typical products of that region. The shift from indirect to direct trade in such commodities as wool, tin and rubber was also responsible for the decline in imports from Europe.

This paper investigates the impact of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on real estate investment trusts (REITs) ETFs in a quantile-based framework by employing the nonparametric causality test and the quantile autoregressive (QAR) model. Using data covering the returns of eight major United States (US) Real Estate Investment Trusts (REIT) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) over the period spanning 2 January 2012 to 28 February 2019, we find that there is a weak predictive power of EPU in REITs' returns and volatility. Our findings indicate that EPU has a leading effect on the real estate market returns at the mean level. However, we find no causality running from EPU to real estate markets volatility at all quantiles, indicating a weak influence of uncertainty on the real estate markets. Besides, our results report a significant impact of the EPU on the returns at the lower and upper quantiles. Yet, the impact is not symmetrical since the EPU shows a positive (negative) impact on the returns during the bearish (bullish) market condition. Moreover, the lagged EPU impacts the REITs negatively only during the normal and bullish market conditions, given all the estimated coefficients being negative and significant. Our results entail policy implications for investors, regulators, and asset managers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rates of mental illness have increased dramatically over the past 15 years in the United States [Products—Data Briefs—Number 283—August 2017. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db283.htm. Published August 15, 2017]. Additionally, life expectancy has fallen over the past several years due to increases in death from suicide, opioid overdose, and alcoholic liver cirrhosis as reported by Case and Deaton [Deaths of despair and the future of capitalism. Princeton University Press, 2020]. Over the last decade some have questioned whether these changes are due to neoliberal capitalist policies and ideologies. Neoliberal capitalism incorporates theories of eliminating all restrictions on the market and decreasing government assistance programs as reported by Harvey [A brief history of neoliberalism, Oxford University Press, 2005]. Since then these policies have led to income inequality, disempowerment of workers, outsourcing of manufacturing jobs, inadequate social services, mass incarceration and an expensive and ineffective healthcare system as reported by Case and Deaton [Deaths of despair and the future of capitalism. Princeton University Press, 2020] and Nkansah-Amankra et al. [International Journal of Health Services 43(2):217-240, 2013]. Studies have shown that the consequences of these policies and ideologies likely have a role in increasing rates of mental illness. This paper will discuss how these factors increase mental distress and postulate ways that mental health professionals can advocate for change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to seek to apply Polanyi's theory of the double movement as a response to the effects of economic liberalization and globalization to the pre-2007 American economy. In so doing, it seeks to ascertain the reasons why this assumed double movement did not materialize until after the post-2007 global economic crisis. Design/methodology/approach – This paper is structured as a theoretical and historical analysis, building upon Polanyi's nineteenth century observations and applying them to contemporary policy economic and social experience in the USA in the late twentieth century. The argument proposes a correlation between the missing and/or delayed movement and the role of access to debt and participation in equity markets. Findings – This paper argues that Polanyi's concept of a societal countermovement has been absent from the post-1970 period of economic liberalism and globalization until just recently due to an explicit attempt by the forces of capital to circumvent its role in lessening the harmful effects of American capitalism. In particular, the double movement that should have sought to lessen income inequality, unemployment and wage stagnation was instead replaced by access to cheap credit and the democratization of market investments that spurred consumer purchases and a false belief that what was good for the markets was good for working class Americans. Research limitations/implications – This paper highlights the need for ongoing research into the sociotropic nature of trade and of economic policy, and its evolution throughout the contemporary period of economic uncertainty and economic transition. Practical implications – The paper proposes several policy implications arising from the contemporary application of Polanyi's double movement, notably related to international trade and public and political support for ongoing trade liberalization. Social implications – This paper highlights important connections in the relationship between economic policy and the day-to-day lives of those who are governed by it. Building on "everyday political economy", it provides a foundation for arguments that a new balance must be found between economic globalization and transnational capital interests and domestic stability. Originality/value – This paper promotes a novel approach to understanding the political economy of pre-2007 America, in particular the reflexive nature of economic policy and societal perceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The buildup in government debt in response to the "great recession," has raised a number of policy dilemmas for individual countries as well as the world as a whole. The recent need for a change of fiscal policy stance has fuelled debates about the impact of fiscal consolidation on domestic economies that are tightening, the flow-on effects to the world economy, and also about how much tightening there should be and how quickly it should happen. This paper explores these issues in a global framework focusing on the national and global consequences of coordinated fiscal consolidation. It explores the implications this fiscal adjustment might have on country risk premia and what happens if all countries coordinate their fiscal adjustment except the United States. A coordinated fiscal consolidation in the industrial world that is not accompanied by U.S. actions is likely to lead to a substantial worsening of trade imbalances globally as the release of capital in fiscally contracting economies flows into the U.S. economy, appreciates the U.S. dollar, and worsens the current account position of the United States. The scale of this change is likely to be sufficient to substantially increase the probability of a trade war between the United States and other economies. To avoid this outcome, a coordinated fiscal adjustment is clearly in the interest of the global economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Industry / Industrija is the property of Economics Institute and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this article the author comments on the study conducted by researchers Gregory Mankiw and Matthew Weinzierl that examines the role of fiscal policy as potential macroeconomic stabilization tool in the U.S. He commends the simple and two-period models used in the study. However, the author criticizes the paper's omission of economist Paul Samuelson's paper, which indicates skepticism about monetary policy, contrast to the researcher's optimism that reduces the role of fiscal policy.

The article discusses the significance of the study conducted by researchers Gregory Mankiw and Matthew Weinzierl that examines the role of fiscal policy as a potential macroeconomic stabilization tool in the U.S. It cites the views of several authors regarding the advantage of the study, which enforces a connection between monetary and fiscal policy. It also mentions other authors who commend the paper due to its clear exposition in which its clarity allegedly made some idiosyncrasies of its model.

The article focuses on the important issues related to ethanol industry in the U.S. These issues includes the implications of alternative incentive schemes for renewable fuels production, impact on the country's agriculture of producing 10-60 gallons of ethanol in 2010-2030 respectively and a comparison between two organizational methods for production and energy crop harvesting. The five main objectives of the incentive scheme includes the consumer cost of fuel, food prices, safety net improvement for the renewable fuel industry , national security and emission control management. The primary purpose of the issues are to examine the significance of bioenergy technology for the improvement of the agriculture economics in the country.

Modern macroeconomic theories are customarily classified as either neoclassical or Keynesian. Neoclassical theories are those that assume that most markets are in equilibrium most of the time; in particular, they generally assume that the labor market is always in equilibrium. Keynesian theories are those that assume that many markets are in disequilibrium much of the time; in addition to the labor market, they generally assume that financial markets and markets for capital goods are often in disequilibrium, in this paper, we will be interested in the extent to which a theory assumes that markets are in equilibrium, rather than in the intellectual tradition of the theory, so we will classify theories as "equilibrium theories" or "disequilibrium theories." We will be interested in dynamic theories, which describe the development of prices, stocks, and flows of goods and services over time, rather than in static theories, which describe the impact of events such as a one-time change in tastes, technology, or government policy. One of the purposes of this paper is to develop an aggregate model of the development over time of an economy that includes money and that is in continual equilibrium in the sense described above. Such a model would help in the analysis of the properties of a competitive monetary economy, and would be a logical starting point for the analysis of such phenomena as unemployment and changes in the rate of inflation. Since most Keynesian models of the economy do not pretend to be equilibrium models, let us turn to the neoclassical models of economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The principle objective of our paper [5] was to present the theoretical concept of the Monetary Full Employment Interest Rate (MFEIR). We argued (and still believe) that this concept should be acceptable for use as an objective indicator of monetary policy by economists who believe that the Keynesian monetary mechanism is a valid description of reality. The presentation of estimates of the MFEIR was a secondary objective. As we stated, "[o]ur empirical results are presented more as an example of how this variable might be measured and used rather than as a definitive set of estimates of the monetary full employment interest rate during the 1952-1966 period." [5, p. 638]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In asking the question, "what can Europe do for itself?" in recovering and rebuilding after World War II, the article presents a conference paper that addresses information from the "General Report of the Committee of European Economic Cooperation." The author summarizes the European position into one: increase production. The author considers whether the goals outlined are attainable and what that will mean, discussing food, coal, electrical power, oil refinement, and steel production.

This paper employs a vector autoregressive (VAR) methodology to examine the role of oil price shocks, defense shocks, national, and local shocks in explaining fluctuations in non-farm employment in a sample of ten states/MSAs in the US in the period 1969-2000. These include a sample of energy rich states and a sample of presumed beneficiaries of defense spending. Existing literature provides mixed evidence on the effects of defense shocks and oil shocks or does not focus on individual states. Results of this paper indicate that oil shocks and defense shocks have more pronounced effects at the local level than they do at the national level. An increase in the price of oil has a fairly large and for the most part statistically significant positive impact on the energy rich states and has a negative and statistically significant impact in the case of the Detroit-Flint MSA. When defense shocks occur they have a sizable impact on local economies that are beneficiaries of defense spending, even though their importance over the whole sample is not always significant. A key policy implication that emerges is that macroeconomic policy at the aggregate level may not be sufficient to uniformly stabilize regional economies that face oil, defense, and local shocks. Furthermore, to the extent that some of these states are linked more to their own local economies rather than to the US economy, they would have to rely more on local stabilization policies when faced with adverse local shocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The standard labor force statistics has been widely used as an important indicator of the overall health of an economy, and both economists and economic policy makers in the U.S. have been uncritically relying on the single official unemployment rate whenever they propose and make an important policy decision. The goal of this paper is to revisit some of the limitations in the US formal labor force statistics and propose to incorporate a series of measures for analyzing a certain quality aspect of employment into the government's formal labor force statistics. The conventional definitions and categories used by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) have many limitations, and are of no use at all in capturing quality aspects of employment. After examining some of these problems, the paper introduces and proposes the International Labor Office (ILO)'s labor (under-)utilization framework to overcome these problems. The labor utilization framework adopted in the ILO's international conferences emphasizes the importance of capturing quality aspects of labor utilization and introduces the concept of income-, time-, and skill-related labor underutilization. The survey in this paper shows that the ILO's labor utilization framework is broader in scope and much more consistent in analyzing the labor market performance. The framework also provides better insights into analyzing the labor market dynamics than any other formal labor force statistical frameworks, including the US BLS's standard labor force statistics. Even though the ILO's labor utilization framework is in no way a complete solution to the task of analyzing the capitalist labor market dynamics and of constantly improving the government's labor force statistics, it is far more superior to the conventional unemployment rate and any other narrowly defined labor force statistics. Thus, it is urged that the US BLS should seriously consider incorporating labor utilization framework into its formal labor force statistics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]