This paper gives an overview of the current (and recent past) status of women economists in the United States and describes what American economists have done to promote gender equality in the economics profession. Initiatives include in large part what the American Economic Association, through...

We formalize and extend George Stigler’s famous article “The division of labor is limited by the extent of the market.” We emphasize economies of scale in intermediate goods production as a determinant of firm boundaries and vertical control. We show that there are potential coordination...

This paper estimates a structural VAR model of U.S. consumer and world commodity prices. An equiproportional long-run response of nominal price levels to amonetary shock yields identifying restrictions. Exogenous innovations to monetary policy account for a sizable share of the co-movement of...

Broadband “open access” regulation mandates openness of conduits (e.g. upgraded cable television) to service providers (e.g. America Online), but policy discussion often suggests that the ultimate goal is openness to advanced content (streaming video, interactive e-commerce, etc.). We define...

In platform-component systems with indirect network effects, some components are so popular with consumers that they have strong bargaining positions and can be regarded as “must-have” from the point of view of the platform. For example, ESPN is a must-have component of cable TV platforms....

Latin American countries are generally characterized as displaying high income and earnings inequality overall along with high inequality by gender, race, and ethnicity. However, the latter phenomenon is not a major contributor to the former phenomenon. Using household survey data from four...

This essay draws on the transaction costs model of the firm and an Austrian perspective on the knowledge problem in centrally planned orders to propose an empirically useful Austrian theory of central planning. Afteran initial review of existing theories of the firm, part two develops insights...

This paper uses a unique new monthly US-UK real exchange rate series for the January 1794 – December 2009 period to reexamine the academic debate over purchasing power parity (PPP). The consensus view described by Rogoff (1996) is that PPP holds in the long-run, but short run deviations are...