Minimum wage hikes express our sympathy for the working poor and our solidarity with them. But their importance is largely symbolic. The net effects of moderate increases in wage floors are vanishingly small. Statutory wage minimums work like taxes on labor, with their proceeds paid directly to...

This article uses simple and self-contained optimal control theory and martingale methods to find optimal government expenditure consistent with present value balance and, implicitly sustainable saving, borrowing, and tax levels as well, since long-term sustainable paths are, in principle, not...

I document evidence that short-horizon earnings mean reversion is the initial portion of a long-horizon cycle in firm earnings, and motivate a theory for how industry level capital expenditure forms a delayed negative feedback loop around firm earnings, driving the cycle. Regression results...

This article shows how to design and organize the delivery of public services to promote the kinds of co-productive behavior needed to make public efforts effective. Second, it specifies human-resource management practices that foster an inclination on the part of public employees to encourage...

This literature survey distinguishes between public administration and economics, identifies some issues common to both fields and some reasons why public administration is not economics. Finally, it briefly surveys the contributions and limits of three bodies of economic literature that have in...