Regression studies have suggested that reducing estate-tax rates would lead to a "<b>net</b>" reduction in total charitable donations distributed at death. Not only is this notion counterintuitive, our empirical analysis yields the contrary conclusion: overall donations would increase. In rationalizing...

This paper illustrates how individual forecasts and forecasting techniques may be evaluated by the use of established decision theory. Given the probability distribution of the forecast error, we first find the optimal strategy for a decision process, i.e., how to make the most efficient use of...