We consider an economy (e.g. Chile 1973-83) with a minimum wage sector and a free sector, and a tax on labor earnings. The supply of labor depends positively on the wage. Jobs in the minimum wage sector are allocated by lottery. In such a model a minimum wage may increase employment and output...

Sebastian Edwards and Alejandra Cox Edwards in their analysis of the Chilean economic liberalization argue that both capital inflows and outflows may have harmed the Chilean economy. They model the Chilean economy as using labor and fixed factors to produce traded and non-traded goods subject to...

Recently, Jans, Wall and Hariharan demonstrated that "there may exist an incentive for a welfare-maximizing government that normally prefers free trade to maintain a protectionist reputation by imposing a voluntary export restraint, VER." We show in the context of their model, which postulates a...

How successful are stock market predictions? We explore one set of easily accessible predictions by a respected firm, GMO. Specifically, we evaluate how effective GMO's predicted stock returns have been in guiding investors from June 2000 through March 2014. We find that the predictions have...

Suppose one country receives a transfer from another. Both are small, so world prices are unaffected. Each adjusts her tariff to achieve budget balance. If and only if the initial tariffs are below the maximum revenue levels, the recipient's tariff falls and the donor's tariff rises. The...

GMO offers a mutual fund which is free to change its composition of assets in accordance with expected risks and returns. It is called the GMO Benchmark Free Allocation Fund III, ticker: GBMFX. This study asks whether one could obtain the same performance by adjusting one's holdings of Vanguard...

Each month, GMO publishes on the web its predictions of the real rate of return for various asset styles over the next seven years. Its web library retains its quarterly predictions, dating back to the end of the second quarter of 2000. This inquiry explores whether they predict the performance...

GMO is a well known mutual fund company that serves wealthy clients. The minimum investment for a mutual fund account is 10 million dollars. GMO's web site is a font of useful and entertaining information. Should the Vanguard investor who can't afford to invest with GMO be envious of the wealthy...

Vanguard provides low cost cap-weighted mutual funds: traditional index funds. The asset allocation of DFA's core funds is determined by fundamentals as well as market cap. RAFI's allocation depends on four fundamental factors — dividends, cash flow, sales, and book equity value. WisdomTree's...