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SIEPR Discussion paper No. 490
Education and Saving: The Long-Term Effects of High School Financial Curriculum Mandates
B. Douglas Bernheim, Daniel M. Garrett, Dean M. Maki
June 1997

Over the last forty years, the majority of states have adopted consumer education policies, and a sizable minority have specifically mandated that high school students receive instruction on topics related to household financial decision-making (budgeting, credit management, saving and investment, and so forth). In this paper, we attempt to determine whether the curricula arising from these mandates have had any discernable effect on adult decisions regarding saving. Using a unique household survey, we exploit the variation in requirements both across states and over time to identify the effects of interest. The evidence indicates that mandates have significantly raised both exposure to financial curricula and subsequent asset accumulation once exposed students reached adulthood. These effects appear to have been gradual rather than immediate--a probable reflection of implementation lags.

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 04-035
The Political Economy of Law: Decision-Making by Judicial, Legislative, Executive and Administrative Agencies
Mat McCubbins, Roger Noll, and Barry Weingast
August 2005

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 487
The Syndrome of the Ever-Higher Yen, 1971-95: American Mercantile Pressure on Japanese Monetary Policy
Ronald McKinnon, Kenichi Ohno, Kazuko Shirono
May 1997

From August 1971 through to April 1995, the yen ratcheted up against the dollar because of mercantile pressure from the United States, which was anxious to dampen its eroding market shares in manufacturing and burgeoning trade deficits. While temporarily ameliorating political tensions arising out of innumerable Japan-U.S. trade disputes, these great yen appreciations imposed relative deflation on Japan without correcting the trade imbalance between the two countries.

Although resisting sharp yen appreciations in the short run, the Bank of Japan validated this syndrome of ever-higher yen by following a dependent monetary policy that was deflationary relative to that independently established by the U.S. Federal Reserve System. The appreciating yen was a forcing variable in determining the Japanese price level. After 1985, this resulted in great macroeconomic instability in Japan including endaka fukyo (high-yen-induced recessions) in 1986-87 and more severely in 1992-95. These recessions further curtailed Japan's imports, thus widening her trade surplus, and so further aggravated American mercantilists.

This unfortunate cycle was (temporarily?) suspended in the summer of 1995 only after authorities in the U.S. Treasury finally recognized that the Japanese macro-financial system was on the verge of collapse. In addition to suspending trade hostilities, the American and Japanese governments collaborated to drive the yen back down by almost 50 percent form its April peak. This permitted the modest recovery of the Japanese economy in 1996-97. But whether the syndrome of the ever-higher yen is over, or is simply in remission, remains to be seen.

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 02-018
Invention under Uncertainty and the Threat of Ex Post Entry
David A. Miller
February 2003

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 00-045
Learning the Silicon Valley Way
Gordon Moore and Kevin Davis
July 2001

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 06-044
Diverse Beliefs and Time Variability of Risk Premia
Mordecai Kurz and Maurizio Motolese
August 2007

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 06-003
Risk Premia, Diverse Belief and Beauty Contests
Mordecai Kurz and Maurizio Motolese
August 2006

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 03-001
Determinants of Stock Market Volatility and Risk Premia
Mordecai Kurz, Hehui Jin and Maurizio Motolese
October 2003

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 02-034
The Role of Expectations in Economic Fluctuations and the Efficacy of Monetary Policy
Mordecai Kurz, Hehui Jin and Maurizio Motolese
Revised November 2003

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 499
Wages, Skills and Technology in the United States and Canada
Kevin M. Murphy, W. Craig Riddell and Paul Romer
August 1998

Wages for more and less educated workers have followed strikingly different paths in the US and Canada. During the 1980’s and 1990’s, the ratio of the earnings of university graduates to high school graduates increased sharply in the US but fell slightly in Canada.

Katz and Murphy (1992) found that for the US, a simple supply-demand model fit the pattern of variation in the premium over time. We find that the same model and parameter estimates explain the variation between the US and Canada. In both instances, the relative demand for more educated labor shifts out at the same, consistent rate. Both over time and between countries, the variation in rate of growth of relative wages can be explained by variation in the relative supply of more educated workers.

Many economists suspect that technological change is causing the steady increases in the relative demand for more educated labor. If so, these data provide independent evidence on the spatial and temporal variation in the pattern of technological change. Whatever is causing this increased demand for skill, the evidence from Canada suggested that increases in educational attainment and skills can reduce the rate at which relative wages diverge.

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 07-039
Brazilian Ethanol: A Gift or Threat to the Environment and Regional Development?
Sriniketh Nagavarapu
January 2008

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 03-017
Real Exchange Rate Fluctuations and Endogenous Tradability
Kanda Naknoi
January 2004

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 07-029
A Solution Concept for Majority Rule in Dynamic Settings
B. Douglas Bernheim and Sita Nataraj
May 2007

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 04-030
Do Women Shy Away from Competition? Do Men Compete too Much?
Muriel Niederle and Lise Vesterlund
June 2005

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 07-017
The Economic Significance of Executive Order 13422
Roger G. Noll
October 2007

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 06-046
Designing an Effective Program of State-Sponsored Human Embryonic Stem-Cell Research
Roger G. Noll
June 2006

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 06-035
Priorities for Telecommunications Reform in Mexico
Roger G. Noll
May 2007

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 06-016
BROADCASTING AND TEAM SPORTS
Roger G. Noll
February 2007

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 06-011
SPORTS ECONOMICS AT FIFTY
Roger G. Noll
November 2006

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 04-035
The Political Economy of Law: Decision-Making by Judicial, Legislative, Executive and Administrative Agencies
Mat McCubbins, Roger Noll, and Barry Weingast
August 2005

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 04-028
The Politics and Economics of Implementing State-Sponsored Embryonic Stem-Cell Research
Roger G. Noll
June 2005

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 04-008
"Buyer Power" and Economic Policy
Roger G. Noll
March 2005

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 03-022
The Conflict Over Vertical Foreclosure In Competition Policy And Intellectual Property Law
Roger G. Noll
March 2004

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 02-043
The Organization of Sports Leagues
Roger G. Noll
August 2003

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 01-031
The Economics of the Supreme Court's Decision On Forward Looking Costs
Gregory L. Rosston and Roger G. Noll
August 2002

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 01-027
Federal R&D in the Anti-Terrorist Era
Roger G. Noll
July 2002

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 01-016
The Economics of Promotion and Relegation in Sports Leagues: The Case of English Football
Roger G. Noll
January 2002

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 01-015
The Economics of Baseball Contraction
Roger G. Noll
January 2002 Revised March 2003

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 01-013
Resolving Policy Chaos in High Speed Internet Access
Roger G. Noll
January 2002

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 99-032
Reforming Urban Water Systems in Developing Countries
Roger G. Noll, Mary M. Shirley, Simon Cowan
June 2000

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 99-031
Telecommunications Reform in Developing Countries
Roger G. Noll
June 2000

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 492
Communications Policy in the Era of Choice and Convergence with Reflections on the Markle Foundation
Roger G. Noll and Monroe E. Price
October 1997

In the 1960s, technological progress caused the technologies of communications media to begin to converge. Convergence enhanced the prospects for competition in the media, promising consumers more choices - but only if histroically anticompetive policies could be reversed. As the era of convergence with choice was dawning, Lloyd Morrisett became the President of the John and Mary Markle Foundation, and immediately changed the focus of the Foundation's program from medical reserach to communications policy. This essay traces both the history of technology and policy in communications, and the closely related activities of the foundation, during the Morrisett presidency, from September 1969 to December 1997. As such, the essay provides both an intellectual history of policy research in communications and a chronicle of how a relatively small but well-managed foundation can have a major impact in an important area of public policy.

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 495
Competition Policy in European Sports after the Bosman Case
Roger G. Noll
June 1998

In the Bosman decision, the European Court of Justice declared that the rules of international football (soccer) governing the player market violated the Maastricht Treaty by preventing international competition for professional athletes. The purpose of this paper is to extend the logic of the Bosman decision to other governance rules of European football, including policies regarding broadcasting, product licensing, and creating and expanding professional leagues. The essence of the argument is that growth in demand for sports and the conversion of European television from nationalized monopoly to privatized competition has vastly increased the financial incentive to create international football leagues comprised of the best teams from the existing national premier leagues. Thus far, national and international football organizations have resisted this movement, but they are unlikely to be successful in doing so. Hence, the relevant question is to identify the various ways these international leagues can be structured, and to apply the principles of competition policy analysis to evaluate them. The main conclusions are that the European Union should, if possible, promote multiple competing leagues rather than a single, monopoly league, or if this is not feasible, to prevent the single league from monopolizing the sale of broadcasting and licensing rights and the number or premier league teams that will be permitted.

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SIEPR Discussion paper No. 02-019
Does Earmarking Matter? The Case of State Lottery Profits and Educational Spending
Neva Kerbeshian Novarro
December 2002

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 487
The Syndrome of the Ever-Higher Yen, 1971-95: American Mercantile Pressure on Japanese Monetary Policy
Ronald McKinnon, Kenichi Ohno, Kazuko Shirono
May 1997

From August 1971 through to April 1995, the yen ratcheted up against the dollar because of mercantile pressure from the United States, which was anxious to dampen its eroding market shares in manufacturing and burgeoning trade deficits. While temporarily ameliorating political tensions arising out of innumerable Japan-U.S. trade disputes, these great yen appreciations imposed relative deflation on Japan without correcting the trade imbalance between the two countries.

Although resisting sharp yen appreciations in the short run, the Bank of Japan validated this syndrome of ever-higher yen by following a dependent monetary policy that was deflationary relative to that independently established by the U.S. Federal Reserve System. The appreciating yen was a forcing variable in determining the Japanese price level. After 1985, this resulted in great macroeconomic instability in Japan including endaka fukyo (high-yen-induced recessions) in 1986-87 and more severely in 1992-95. These recessions further curtailed Japan's imports, thus widening her trade surplus, and so further aggravated American mercantilists.

This unfortunate cycle was (temporarily?) suspended in the summer of 1995 only after authorities in the U.S. Treasury finally recognized that the Japanese macro-financial system was on the verge of collapse. In addition to suspending trade hostilities, the American and Japanese governments collaborated to drive the yen back down by almost 50 percent form its April peak. This permitted the modest recovery of the Japanese economy in 1996-97. But whether the syndrome of the ever-higher yen is over, or is simply in remission, remains to be seen.

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 07-035
Economic Projections and Rules-of-Thumb for Monetary Policy
Athanasios Orphanides and Volker Wieland
February 2008

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 07-027
Why Media Regulation is so Tempting
Bruce M. Owen
January 2008

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 06-032
China’s Competition Policy Reforms: The Antimonopoly Law and Beyond
Bruce M. Owen, Su Sun, Wentong Zheng
April 2007

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 06-015
The Net Neutrality Debate: Twenty Five Years after United States v. AT&T and 120 Years after the Act to Regulate Commerce
Bruce M. Owen,
February 2007

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 04-010
Competition Policy in Emerging Economies
Bruce M. Owen,
April 2005

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 03-040
Antitrust in China: The Problem of Incentive Compatibility
Bruce M. Owen, Su Sun, Wentong Zheng
September 2004

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 03-027
Assigning Broadband Rights
Bruce M. Owen
May 2004

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 03-026
Confusing Success with Access: “Correctly” Measuring Concentration of Ownership and Control in Mass Media and Online Services
Bruce M. Owen
May 2004

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 03-009
Imported Antitrust Law: Steel or Slag? A Review Essay
Bruce M. Owen
February 2004

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 03-003
Competition Policy in Latin America
Bruce M. Owen
November 2003

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 02-037
Local Broadband Access: Primum Non Nocere or Primum Processi? A Property Rights Approach
Bruce M. Owen and Gregory L. Rosston
July 2003

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 02-032
Legal Reform, Externalities and Economic Development: Measuring the Impact of Legal Aid on Poor Women in Ecuador
Bruce. M Owen and Jorge Portillo
May 2003 X

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 05-007

Anders Frederiksen and Odile Poulsen
February 2006

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 03-010
Robert Pozen, Sylvester J. Schieber, and John B. Shoven
January 2004

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 02-031
Regulatory Reform: The Telecommunications Act of 1996 and the FCC Media Ownership Rules
Bruce. M Owen
March 2003

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 02-026
Coordinated Interaction and Clayton §7 Enforcement
Stuart D. Gurrea and Bruce. M Owen
March 2003

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 01-009
Spectrum Allocation and the Internet
Bruce M. Owen and Gregory L. Rosston
December 2001

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 02-006
Why Do Firms Use Incentives That Have No Incentive Effects?
Paul Oyer
December 2002

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 02-005
Why Do Some Firms Give Stock Options To All Employees?: An Empirical Examination of Alternative Theories
Paul Oyer and Scott Schaefer
December 2002

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 99-001
Measuring the Inflation of Parallel Currencies: An Empirical Reevaluation Of the Second Hungarian Hyperinflation
Beatrix Paall
June 2000

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 07-041
Stiff Competition: Vertical Relationships in Cremation Services
Lori Parcel
March 2008

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 04-036
A Life Cycle Perspective on Changes in Earnings Inequality Among Married Men and Women
John Pencavel
July 2005

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 03-028
Faculty Retirement Incentives by Colleges and Universities
John Pencavel
May 2004

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 00-031
The Surprising Retreat of Union Britain
John Pencavel
March 2001

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 00-009
A Cohort Analysis of the Association Between Work Hours and Wages Among Men
John Pencavel
November 2000

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 99-19
The Response of Employees to Severance Incentives:
The University of California's Faculty, 1991-1994
John Pencavel
April 2000

In response to huge budgetary shortfalls in the early 1990s, the University of California offered its older and longer service employees financial inducements to leave. This paper analyzes the responses of UC's faculty to three waves of buyout incentives. It is estimated that an individual presented with ten percent higher severance benefits has a seven to eight percent higher probability of quitting. However, quit probabilities are very difficult to forecast with accuracy. This casts doubt on arguments that maintain that buyouts are superior to employer-initiated layoffs as a mechanism to effect large employment changes.

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SIEPR Discussion paper No. 99-6
The Appropriate Design of Collective Bargaining Systems: Learning from the Experience of Britain, Australia, and New Zealand
John Pencavel
November 1998

The experiences of three countries -- Britain, Australia, and New Zealand -- are drawn upon to suggest how the legal framework for collective bargaining ought to be designed to bring forth unionism's most desirable features. For most of the twentieth century, these three countries have adopted quite different regulatory postures: Australia and New Zealand (until recently) intervened extensively into the procedures for wage determination and set up compulsory arbitration tribunals to underpin wages; by contrast, Britain's support of collective bargaining was indirect. In all cases, however, this regulation of collective bargaining complemented other economic policies that contributed to inferior economic performance, something that has now been recognized in New Zealand and Britain by reforms that have taken place during the past two decades. The lessons for economic policy are that superior macro-economic performance is easier to attain when collective bargaining is regulated not by an assortment of mandates and constraints set down in legal code, but by allowing managements and workers to design bargaining protocols that suit them and by promoting competition in product and factor markets. In specifying the framework of collective bargaining, the state should not be partisan and should encourage the resolution of disputes at the level of the firm or place of work.

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SIEPR Discussion paper No. 01-033
Does Income Inequality Lead to Consumption Inequality? Evidence and Theory
Dirk Krueger and Fabrizio Perri
August 2002

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 99-028
Intertemporal Choice and Consumption Mobility
Tullio Jappelli and Luigi Pistaferri
August 2000

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 99-027
Superior Information, Income Shocks and the Permanent Income Hypothesis
Luigi Pistaferri
August 2000

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 06-006
Mandatory versus Voluntary Disclosure of Product Risks
A. Mitchell Polinsky and Steven Shavell
May 2006

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 05-016
Public Enforcement of Law
A. Mitchell Polinsky and Steven Shavell
May 2006

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 05-005
Economic Analysis of Law
A. Mitchell Polinsky and Steven Shavell
November 2005

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 05-004
The Theory of Public Enforcement of Law
A. Mitchell Polinsky and Steven Shavell
October 2005

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 04-009
A Damage-Revelation Rationale for Coupon Remedies
A. Mitchell Polinsky and Daniel L. Rubinfeld
March 2005

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 03-038
Optimal Fines and Auditing When Wealth is Costly to Observe
A. Mitchell Polinsky
August 2004

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 03-037
The Optimal Use of Fines and Imprisonment When Wealth is Unobservable
A. Mitchell Polinsky
August 2004

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 03-004
Remedies For Price Overcharges: The Deadweight Loss Of Coupons And Discounts
A. Mitchell Polinsky and Daniel L. Rubinfeld
November 2003

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 99-12
Superior Information, Income Shocks and the Permanent Income Hypothesis
A. Mitchell Polinsky and Steven Shavell
July 1999

Public enforcement of law -- the use of public agents (inspectors, tax auditors, police, prosecutors) to detect and to sanction violators of legal rules -- is a subject of obvious generate, the extent of compliance with the income tax code, and the incidence of theft, robbery and other crimes.

The earliest economically-oriented writing in the subject of law enforcement dates from the eighteenth century contributions of Montesquieu (1748), Cesare Beccaria (1767), and, especially Jeremy Bentham (1789), whose analysis of deterrence was sophisticated and economic scholarship until the late 1960s, when Gary S. Becker 1968 published a highly influential article. Since then, well over two hundred articles have been written on the economics of enforcement.

The main purpose of our article is to present the economic theory public enforcement of law in a systematic and comprehensive way. The theoretical core of our analysis (section 2 through 4) answers the following basic questions: How much of society's resources should be devoted to apprehending injuries? If an injurer is caught, should the rule of liability be strict or fault-based? Should the form of the sanction be a fine, an imprisonment term, or a combination of the two? At what level should sanctions be set?

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SIEPR Discussion paper No. 02-032
Legal Reform, Externalities and Economic Development: Measuring the Impact of Legal Aid on Poor Women in Ecuador
Bruce. M Owen and Jorge Portillo
May 2003

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 03-010
Improving Social Security’s Progressivity and Solvency With Hybrid Indexing
Robert Pozen, Sylvester J. Schieber, and John B. Shoven
January 2004

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 492
Communications Policy in the Era of Choice and Convergence with Reflections on the Markle Foundation
Roger G. Noll and Monroe E. Price
October 1997

In the 1960s, technological progress caused the technologies of communications media to begin to converge. Convergence enhanced the prospects for competition in the media, promising consumers more choices - but only if histroically anticompetive policies could be reversed. As the era of convergence with choice was dawning, Lloyd Morrisett became the President of the John and Mary Markle Foundation, and immediately changed the focus of the Foundation's program from medical reserach to communications policy. This essay traces both the history of technology and policy in communications, and the closely related activities of the foundation, during the Morrisett presidency, from September 1969 to December 1997. As such, the essay provides both an intellectual history of policy research in communications and a chronicle of how a relatively small but well-managed foundation can have a major impact in an important area of public policy.

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 482
Special Economic Zones as Catalysts for Transition
John M. Litwack, Yingyi Qian
November 1996

One of the early strategic decisions in Chinese reform was the establishment of several special economic zones. These areas received both relatively high levels of investment and favorable tax treatment. We interpret this strategy as an appropriate response to two critical problems facing the reformers at this time: (1) A limited ability to commit due to the lack of institutions to constrain the state from expropriation, and (2) a political constraint to meet significant basic requirements in social policy. The interaction between these two problems can cause the economy to be caught in a low-equilibrium trap if limited resources are spread too thinly. By concentrating resources in special economic zones, this trap might be avoided in at least some areas of the economy, which could also eventually generate important spillover effects elsewhere. Thus, in the presence of important commitment and political problems, special economic zones can serve as catalysts for transition, despite the resulting (inefficient) diversion of resources and growth in regional inequality.

SIEPR Discussion paper No. 03-014
Optimal Second Price Auctions with Positively Correlated Private Values and Limited Information
Dan Quint a
January 2004