A battery of four tests for randomness in a time series is developed. It is applied to the trend of annual personal income per capita in West Virginia, relative to that of the United States, from 1948 through 1970. The paper does not reject the hypothesis that the trend of relative income was...

The fiscal tug-of-war between two countries to play host to a foreign- owned firm is like a Nash game. Suppose that the countries are not sure how much the firm values the sites that they offer to it. Also suppose that the countries fashion their expectation of site value by assigning the same...

Small jurisdictions vie for economic development by relaxing pollution controls. This can cause damaging spillovers. Many policy analysts recommend replacing the small jurisdictions with a single authority that taxes development. But as the sole producer of development rights to a unique area,...

The rate at which police officers were murdered rose over the 1960s, although expected penalties also grew more severe. During that period, a subjective index indicates, arrest suspects may have become more prone to commit crimes for impulsive or political reasons rather than out of rational...

Under court rulings, the jurisdiction can require the developer to bear only those public-sector costs that relate reasonably to his project. To avoid a lawsuit by the developer over cost estimates, planners can offer him his choice of sets of conditions that would attach to land-use permits....

Longer patents to small inventors may accelerate genetic research with distant payoffs by assuaging their fears that a large, low-cost rival would quickly appropriate profits.

The paper models and tests the hypothesis that a self-interested policymaker will pursue projects that create jobs now at the environmental expense of future generations. An optimal-control model shows that jurisdictions are most likely to pursue such a project when they are characterized by low...

Patenting may speed up genetic research when small inventors face high research and development costs and also face large rivals that produce at declining marginal costs. Even with patents, however, small inventors may turn down socially beneficial projects when they believe that R&D spending...

Planners wish to avoid a lawsuit by the developer over their cost estimates of the public works required by his project. To avoid a suit, they can offer him his choice of several sets of conditions that would attach to land-use permits. In computer simulations of five such short- and long-term...

An optimal control model shows how a jurisdiction can tax tourists in a<BR> way that maximizes its revenues net of its costs in serving tourists: By<BR> relating its tax rate to its popularity with tourists. When its<BR> popularity waxes, it should raise the tax rate; when its popularity<BR> wanes, it should...