Considers two propositions to see what the optimal level of government for the production of collectively produced goods is. Situations where economies of scale are not exhausted and where it is thus more costly to supply the service on a smaller scale; situations where segregation of consumers...

A Laspeyres index of total input in the electric power industry was constructed. The nature of the bias imbedded in such an index, and its relation to the Paasche index and its bias, are investigated. Means to evaluate the actual size of the bias and means to reduce it are devised

There are many economic activities where the cost function can be approximated by a fixed initial cost and a constant (sometimes zero) marginal cost as with book publishing, public utilities, and innovations. In the absence of technical advance, an economy that grows in scale could nevertheless...

We should first note that if one does not view expenditures on quality, location, or promotion as utility-generating expenditures, misallocation occurs by definition. We will follow Demsetz, however, in proposing that such expenditures, including those on promotion, do in fact generate utility....

The "backward bending" supply curve of labor is now accepted as a matter of course by most economists. it has no doubt been perplexing to observe that most commonly employed types of utility functions do not yield such curves under the usual textbook analysis of the problem. Particular...

The recognition that investment in human capital depends on its utilization (i.e., the number of hours it is used) is offered as an explanation of diverse phenomena such as of tourists' behavior, women's participation rate in the labor force, and the decline of investment in human capital with...

This paper offers an extention of the traditional approach to the analysis of taxation capable of explaining observations attributable to taxation which were not previously explicable. Underlying the change in approach are the premises that every commodity is composed of a set of characteristics...

Discusses the central role firms play in resolving the issue of the capturability of returns from innovation as mentioned in a set of papers. Description of an innovating firm; definition of the cost curve; illustration of a contract designed to increase the capturability from innovations

Under caveat emptor, buyers effect their measurements prior to exchange. Long-term relationships and contracts allow buyers to measure commodities at consumption. Buyers use subjective measurements in long-term relations. Contractual guarantees shift enforcement to the state, but require...

Contract stipulations tend to be subject to commodity standards. Standards make it clearer what transactors have agreed upon. They also bring stipulations from different contracts under a common denominator. The lower the cost of measuring an attribute and the wider the range of its application,...