We use U.S. county level data (3,058 observations) from 1970 to 1998 to explore the relationship between economic growth and the extent of government employment at three levels: federal, state and local. We find that increases in federal, state, and local government employments are all...

We use U.S. county data (3,058 observations) and 41 conditioning variables to study growth and convergence. Using OLS and 3SLS-IV we report on the full sample and metro, non-metro, and 5 regional samples: 1) OLS yields convergence rates around 2 percent; 3SLS yields 6-8 percent; 2) Convergence...

Analyzing a large weekly retail transaction price dataset, we uncover a surprising regularity small price increases occur more frequently than small price decreases for price changes of up to about 10 cents, while there is no such asymmetry for larger price changes. The asymmetry holds for the...

This note outlines: 1) Why sigma-convergence may not accompany beta-convergence; 2) Cites evidence of beta-convergence in the U.S.; 3) Demonstrates that sigma-convergence does not hold across the U.S. or within most U.S. states; and 4) Demonstrates the robustness of this finding to increases in...

We use U.S. county-level data (3,058 observations) from 1970 to 1998 to explore the relationship between economic growth and the size of government at three levels: federal, state, and local. Using 3SLS-IV estimation we find that the size of federal, state, and local government all either...

The marketplace, along with its price system, is the single most important institution in a western-style free enterprise economy. The ability of prices to adjust to changes in supply and demand conditions enables the market to function efficiently and lies behind the magical invisible hand...

We use U.S. county-level data consisting of 3,058 observations, to study growth determination and measure the speed of income convergence. County-level data are particularly valuable for studying convergence because they allow us to study a sample with substantial homogeneity and exceptional...

We use Mississippi county-level data on (per capita) income and the percentages of populations that are Black (henceforth "Black") to examine the relationship between race and economic growth. The analysis is also conditioned on 40 other economic and sociodemographic variables. Given a negative...

We study item-pricing laws (which require that each item in a store be individually marked with a price sticker) and examine and quantify their costs and benefits. On the cost side, we argue that item-pricing laws increase the retailers' costs, forcing them to raise prices. We test this...

Using weekly retail transaction scanner price data from a large U.S. supermarket chain, we find significantly higher retail price rigidity for private label products than for nationally branded products during the Christmas and Thanksgiving holiday periods relative to the rest of the year. The...