During the long economic slump in Japan, monetary policy in Japan has essentially consisted of a very low interest rate (since 1995), a zero interest rate (since 1999), and quantitative easing (since 2001). The intention seems to have been to lower expectations of future interest rates. But the...

For decades the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) has been held as an article of faith among financial economists. The model, usually attributed to 1990 Nobel Laureate William Sharpe (1964), was also developed by Fischer Black (1972), John Lintner (1965), Jan Mossin (1966), and Jack Treyor...

We present a proof-of-concept analysis of the measurement of the health damage of ozone (O3) produced from nitrogen oxides (NOx = NO + NO2) emitted by individual large point sources in the eastern United States. We use a regional atmospheric model of the eastern United States, the Comprehensive...

In his William S. Vickrey address to the International Atlantic Economic association in 2005, Franklin Allen examined the question of how China has managed to grow rapidly in the absence of many of the factors usually considered essential to economic expansion in Western economies. China had no...

This study focuses on 540 households originally living in public housing in high-poverty areas of Boston who participated in HUD’s Moving To Opportunity (MTO) demonstration. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups: Experimental – offered mobility counseling and a Section 8...

We compare the behavior of voters, depending on whether they operate under sequential and simultaneous voting rules, when voting is costly and information is incomplete. In many real political institutions, ranging from small committees to mass elections, voting is sequential, which allows some...

The notion that free choice is welfare-enhancing is one of the foundations of modern, market-oriented societies. This view is prominent in the school choice debate, where there is a widespread perception that public schools are inecientlocal monopolies, and that the quality of education would...

Most people believe that they would be happier if they were richer, but survey evidence on subjective well-being is largely inconsistent with that belief. Subjective well-being is most commonly measured by questions that ask people, “All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life...

Constructing a data base that is relatively free of bias, this paper provides measures of the returns of hedge fund s as well as the distinctly non-normal characteristics of the data. We provide risk-adjusted measures of performance as well as tests of the degree to which hedge funds live up to...

An ongoing controversy in the literature on the economics of higher education centers on whether the success of a school’s athletic program affects alumni donations. This paper uses a unique data set to investigate this issue. The data contain detailed information about donations made by...