For the steel import quota bill of 1999, our answer to the question posed in the title is that each word in the Congressional Record costs $39 in campaign contributions from the steel industry. Consequently, our answer is "Yes."

Do enhanced index funds beat traditional ones? The major companies that offer the new enhanced index international mutual funds are Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA), RAFI, and WisdomTree. A major provider of traditional international index funds is DFA. We compare various enhanced international...

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...

This paper discovers that a campaign contribution to a member of the U.S. House of Representatives by the National Education Association (the major teacher's union) in the 2000 election cycle reduces the probability that a Representative will vote for a pro-choice amendment to the "No Child Left...

Recently, there has been a lot of discussion about whether and how much the U.S. stock market is overvalued, leading some economic gurus to suggest that foreign markets may be good investments. We ask whether this is the case and apply the Gordon formula to predict future real rates of return on...

In an overlapping generations model, capital and labor produce two tradeable goods. A kleptocratic government spends the tariff revenue. Trade liberalization, which lowers the relative price of the importable to the private sector, benefits the retired generation if and only if the relative...

We consider an economy (e.g. Chile 1973-83 or modern Turkey) with a minimum wage sector and a free sector, and a tax on labor earnings. We ask can a minimum wage hike raise employment and economic efficiency?