This paper explores the reasoning underlying Milton Friedman's preference for a small, unbalanced budget over a large, balanced one. Because the marginal return from government spending is less than the marginal cost (measured in terms of the amount of income private individuals remain free to...

Congress approved the superconducting supercollider (SSC), but later cut all funding after construction for the project had begun. We claim that this reversal was due, in part, to a problem of time inconsistency. Representatives from states in contention to receive the project had an incentive...

This paper reports evidence supporting the hypothesis that production flexibility is one of the forces that explain differences in the distribution of firm sizes across industries. Using a data set composed of annual observations on 163 four-digit manufacturing industries over the period...

The structure-conduct-performance paradigm is tested using 4-digit SIC Korean industry data for 1981 and 1986. The study investigates whether the observed institutional differences between developed and developing countries affects the performance hypothesis. The results suggest that structure...

The Social Security program has grown more than a thousand-fold since its inception. Even after the increased number of retired persons and inflation are accounted for, average real Social Security benefit levels more than tripled from the late 1940s to the early 1980s. What accounts for this...