This paper contrasts the return of Vanguard and Fidelity active stock mutual funds with the style-mimicking portfolio of Vanguard’s index funds. Vanguard’s equally-weighted portfolio of domestic active funds out-returns the portfolio of Vanguard index funds with the same style, as does...

How much of a difference do smart trading strategies, stock choice, and lending securities to short sellers reduce the net expenses of Vanguard’s index ETFs below their reported expense ratios? Using Vanguard’s reported returns for their index ETFs and their benchmarks I discover the return...

Jack Bogle, Vanguard’s founder, argued that high expenses and turnover doom mutual funds to inferior returns. This is generally true. In this paper I explore whether this is also true of Vanguard’s actively managed mutual funds. Much of Vanguard’s reputation rests on its index funds....

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...

In the spring of 2000, two books predicted a substantial fall in the S&P500 Index. Robert Shiller's <I>Irrational Exuberance</I> found that, historically, a high price earnings ratio, with real earnings averaged over 10 years, accurately predicts a low real rate of return from investing in the S&P500...</i>

This paper is a short, non-technical exposition of the political economy of protection. It asks how do political forces operate to generate protection, and what determines the magnitude and form that protection takes.

Is John Bogle right that Vanguardís index and managed funds are comparable and by his example that investors should hold both? Each Vanguard managed fund produces the same return as the tracking basket of Vanguardís indexed funds plus a differential, a. If a, is positive the managed fund is...

Robert Crandall in the March 19, 1999 Wall Street Journal wrote, "On Wednesday the House passed one of the most blatantly protectionist pieces of legislation since the 1930s. Reacting to the anguished cries from the steel industry and its rapidly declining unionized workforce, the House voted to...