Mary Beth Combs
I examine wealth holding patterns of lower middle class women married in the years surrounding the 1870 Married Women's Property Act to determine whether a change in property law altered the implicit price of personal property purchased by married women. My results indicate that the Act altered the risk of expropriation of personal property investments and thus the implicit prices faced by women purchasing personal property. After the passage of the Act the implicit price of personal property purchased by women married after the Act fell by 40 percent. As a result, lower middle class women married after the Act transferred a substantial amount of their wealth into forms of personal property investments. At the time that women shifted their wealth away from real property the returns from real property were increasing while personal property returns remained constant. Women had no return-driven incentive to shift their wealth holding into forms of personal property. (N33, D13, G11)
Jannett Highfill, William J. Polley, and Robert C. Scott
Suppose a price setting firm knows the distribution of reservation prices its customers have for an existing product. Then suppose the firm introduces a product improvement, and it is able to quantitatively evaluate the increase in performance (e.g. time saved, capacity increased, etc.) for the new product as compared to the original one. The paper provides a general method for pricing the innovation and then focuses on the case of normally distributed reservation prices. This approach can explain pricing behavior that standard linear demand curve models do not easily explain. (D42)
Talat Ulussever
This study examines the macroeconomic effect of FDI on the Turkish economy. We construct a basic macro model and use regression analysis to explore the possible effects of FDI on the Turkish economy through domestic investment, private consumption, exports, and imports. We use data from 1960 to 2000 and find that FDI has a statistically significant positive effect on domestic investment, exports, and imports. On the other hand, FDI has no statistically significant effect on private consumption. (C30, E20, F21)
Larry R. Davis, Steven R. Elliott and Patrick Joyce
In this paper we investigate the market viability of new assurance services being marketed by accountants. Unlike traditional assurance services, such as financial statement audits, these services may be marketed directly to individual consumers, may vary in quality and may take some characteristics of public goods. Our results indicate that some decision-makers will purchase assurance information, but that many will not, even when priced below its risk neutral expected value. Further, our results suggest information users do not fully reflect the information's uncertainty in their purchase decisions, and free riding may occur if information takes some characteristics of a public good. (D8, M4)
James R. Gale
This paper examines the way in which principles of economics textbooks treat the concept of capital. A number of textbooks are reviewed and are shown to exhibit consistencies and inconsistencies in the use of the word "capital" in different contexts within the main body of textbooks and in definitions found in glossaries. Included in the paper is a discussion of the new concept of capital found in international balance of payments accounting. The general conclusions of the paper are that authors should use multiple definitions in glossaries and that they and instructors should highlight potential sources of confusion in the use of technical economic terms to first readers of economics. (A22)