In this paper we use a standard multi-union, monopolistic competition model to evaluate analytically and numerically the effects of monetary policy on inflation and unemployment under different institutional arrangements in the labor market that are defined by the rigidity of nominal wages. We...

The transition from a hunter-gather economy to agricultural production, which made possible the endogenous technological progress that ultimately led to the industrial revolution, is one of the most important events in the thousands of years of humankind’s economic development. In this paper...

The most important event in human economic history before the Industrial Revolution was the Neolithic transition from a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle to sedentary agriculture, beginning about 10,000 years ago. The transition made possible the human population explosion, the rise of...

published in <p> The Oxford Handbook of Political Economy Barry R. Weingast and Donald Wittman, eds. Oxford University Press, 2006 <p>

The effects of wage dispersion on productive efficiency is a topic rich in theoretical conjecture, a common object of Scandinavian polemical debate and at the same time an issue almost barren of systematic econometric evidence. The Swedish record of enormous compression of relative wages under...

A simple "Bread and Peace" model shows that aggregate votes for President in postwar elections were determined entirely by weighted-average growth of real disposable personal income per capita during the incumbent party's term and the cumulative numbers of American military personnel killed in...