This paper offers an explanation for observed differences across countries in educational policies and in resulting interpersonal distributions of human capital. We analyze a general-equilibrium model in which, as a result of the apportionment of natural ability, nurturing, and publicly financed...

This paper incorporates the economic theory of predation into the theory of economic growth. The analytical framework is a dynamic general-equilibrium model of the interaction between two dynasties, one of which is a potential predator and the other is its prey. Each generation of each dynasty...

This paper studies the relation between inequality and welfare in a general- equilibrium model in which people can choose to be either producers or preda- tors. We assume some people (the privileged) are well endowed with human capital and other people (the unprivileged) are poorly endowed with...

This paper shows how predation breaks the links between an economy's aggregate resourceendowment and aggregate consumption and between the interpersonal distribution of endowments and the interpersonal distribution of consumption. We construct a general-equilibrium model in which some people...

The main objective of this paper is to understand and to evaluate recently expressed popular anxiety about large American fiscal deficits. The paper begins with a discussion of problems involved in measuring the fiscal deficit. A general conclusion is that all interesting measures of the federal...

This paper uses contemporaneous monetary data to carry out econometric tests of the "equilibrium" approach to modeling the relation between monetary disturbances and macroeconomic fluctuations. The theoretical analysis introduces into an equilibrium macroeconomic model the availability of...

This paper argues that before World War II the desire to maintain a trustworthy reputation for honoring war debts was an important factor in inducing deflationary postwar monetary policies in both the United Kingdom and the United States. The paper then asks why this policy objective did not...

This essay analyzes current fiscal policy in the United States within an historical context. The objective is to clarify why recent developments in the United States are troubling, but also to understand why the United States, in contrast to other countries such as Italy, has so far avoided the...

This paper explores one of the ways in which acceptance of the hypothesis that labor market transactions involve arrangements for shifting risk from workers to employers strengthens the case for accepting the hypothesis that incomplete information is the critical factor in producing the positive...

This paper develops a theoretical model that relates changes in educational inequality to the combined effects of innovations that have increased the relative demand for more educated labor and innovations that have increased ability premiums. Under the assumption that in the long run individual...