This paper attempts to identify the costs and benefits of programs of firm-specific investment grants. The benefits arise from a divergence between private and social returns, such as might occur when new products are created or when workers are employed in depressed regions. The primary cost is...

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It has been observed by many that Jorgenson and Griliches' findings have profound implications about the nature and prospects of economic development. In this paper, the author proposes to show that Jorgenson and Griliches' evidence does not bear these implications, and that the inferences drawn...

The effect of a widening of the distribution of income upon society's choice of the amount of redistribution is a balancing of two opposing forces: the increase in redistribution in response to the increased ratio of mean to median income and the decrease in response to the greater advertising...

A duty to vote may be interpreted narrowly as no more than an obligation to cast one’s ballot, supporting a party or candidate in one’s own interest exclusively or, if one so pleases, with some regard for the community as a whole. Alternatively, a duty to vote may be interpreted...

People vote from self-interest or from a sense of duty. Voting from self-interest requires there to be some chance, however small, that one's vote swings the outcome of the election from the political party one opposes to the political party one favours. This paper is a discussion of three...

Government by majority rule voting requires that compromise be attainable, but not too easily. Little of the nation's business could be transacted without an ability on the part of the legislators and political parties to strike bargains, but government by majority rule voting could not...

<DIV>How is real capital measured by government statistical agencies? How could this measure be improved to correspond more closely to an economist's ideal measure of capital in economic analysis and prediction? It is possible to construct a single, reliable time series for all capital goods,...</div>

Through tax evasion, through the labour-leisure choice or in other ways, taxpayers reduce the tax base in response to an increase in the tax rate. The process is commonly-believed to generate a humped Laffer curve with a revenue-maximizing tax rate well short of 100%. That need not be so. In the...