The paper explains most, if not all, observations made by the empirical literature regarding the behavior of skilled and unskilled real wages in the United States, especially those since 1980. Generalizing the Stopler-Samuelson theorem, the authors show that the nontraded sector is critical to...

The paper examines three popular models that form the foundation of modern economics. The author concludes that two of the three, the classical and the Keynesian, are seriously deficient in logic, whereas the third, dealing with gains from trade, is partially lacking in logic. Classical and...

Lucas (1976) argued that interventionist policies in macroeconomics may fail because the policies themselves affect the optimal behavior of private agents and hence the associated response parameters. We extend Lucas's argument and propose that a highly controlled and regulated environment leads...

Using the hybrid of Heckscher - Ohlin and Specific Factor models of trade we show that economic recession led shock results in a loss for both capitalists and skilled workers. Some of the unionized unskilled workers lose formal sector employment and move onto the informal sector. In case capital...

This paper builds a general equilibrium model for a small open economy with unemployment of unskilled labor to assess the impact of a recessionary shock. It is shown that irrespective of the factor intensity assumption skilled wage and rental ratio goes up if recession led price fall is...

In contrast to some trade theorists' long-held beliefs, this study shows that free trade reduces the welfare of a small country with unemployment unless the free trade price of the importable falls below the autarky equivalent price. This study formulates a disequilibrium trade model with sticky...

We study the contractual interaction between the fathers of a prospective groom and a prospective bride in a traditional society. Based on his valuation of the groom, the bride's father approaches the groom's father with an offer of marriage. The groom's father does not know the quality of the...

We build up a simple Ricardian trade model with imperfection in the market for credit which affects the pattern of production. Workers/entrepreneurs are endowed with different levels “capital†and need to borrow to produce the credit intensive good. We argue that in such a framework...

We construct a generalized model of finite change whereby exogenous shocks such as international trade or technological change, not only contract, but totally shut down production in some sectors. In such cases even in a competitive structure and in absolute contrast to the conventional wisdom,...

We build up a Ricardian trade model for a small open economy with imperfection in the market for credit which eventually affects the pattern of production and trade. Workers/entrepreneurs are endowed with different levels “capital” and need to borrow to produce the credit intensive good....