We use US county level data (3,058 observations) from 1970 to 1998 to explore the relationship between economic growth and the extent of government employment at three levels: federal, state and local. We find that increases in federal, state and local government employments are all negatively...

We use Mississippi county-level data on (per capita) income and the percentages of populations that are Black (henceforth "Black") to examine the relationship between race and economic growth. The analysis is also conditioned on 40 other economic and socio-demographic variables. Given a negative...

In this paper we outline (i) why sigma-convergence may not accompany beta-convergence, (ii) discuss evidence of beta-convergence in the U.S., and (iii) use U.S. county-level data containing over 3,000 cross-sectional observations to demonstrate that sigma-convergence cannot be detected at the...

We study the cost of breaching an implicit contract in a goods market. Young and Levy (2014) document an implicit contract between the Coca-Cola Company and its consumers. This implicit contract included a promise of constant quality. We offer two types of evidence of the costs of breach. First,...

Higgins et al. (2006) report several statistically significant partial correlates with U.S. per capita income growth. However, Levine and Renelt (1992) demonstrate that such correlations are hardly ever robust to changing the combination of conditioning variables included. We ask whether the...

We report that the price of a 6.5oz Coke was 5¢ from 1886 until 1959. Thus, we are documenting a nominal price rigidity that lasted more than 70 years! The case of Coca-Cola is particularly interesting because during the 70-year period there were substantial changes in the soft drink industry...

Energy from fossil fuels have become dominant in the industrialised and industrialising economies of the world. However, fossil fuels are also recognised as heavily polluting and responsible for a range of modern environmental and health problems. Nuclear power is a similar conventional energy...

We offer the first direct evidence of an implicit contract in a goods market. The evidence we offer comes from the market for Coca-Cola. We demonstrate that the Coca-Cola Company left a substantial amount of written evidence of its implicit contract with its consumers—a very explicit form of...

We study the cost of breaching an implicit contract in a goods market, building on a recent study that documented the presence of such a contract in the Coca-Cola market, in the US, during 1886‒1959. The implicit contract promised a serving of Coca-Cola of a constant quality (the “real...

We use US county-level data containing 3,058 cross-sectional observations and 41 conditioning variables to study economic growth and explore possible heterogeneity in growth determination across 32 individual states. Using a 3SLS-IV estimation method, we find that the convergence rates for 32...