Front Matter

Journal of Economic Literature, September 1999

Macroeconomic Performance and Collective Bargaining: An International Perspective

By Robert J. Flanagan

Journal of Economic Literature, September 1999

This paper critically reviews the research on how collective bargaining systems influence macroeconomic performance in industrialized countries. The review considers effects of bargaining level, coordination, and corporatist institutional arrangements. Ke...

An Essay on Fiscal Federalism

By Wallace E. Oates

Journal of Economic Literature, September 1999

This paper is a selective survey of fiscal federalism. It begins with a brief review and some reflections on the traditional theory of fiscal federalism: the assignment of functions to levels of government, the welfare gains from fiscal decentralization, ...

Book Reviews

Journal of Economic Literature, June 1999

Nash Equilibrium and the History of Economic Theory

By Roger B. Myerson

Journal of Economic Literature, September 1999

John Nash's formulation of noncooperative game theory was one of the great breakthroughs in the history of social science. Nash's work in this area is reviewed in its historical context to better understand how the fundamental ideas of noncooperative game...

Child Labor: Cause, Consequence, and Cure, with Remarks on International Labor Standards

By Kaushik Basu

Journal of Economic Literature, September 1999

The paper brings together the abundant and somewhat anarchic literature on child labor, isolating its central findings and analytical insights. The investigation is especially directed at the micro economics of why child labor occurs and the sort of polic...

The Numerical Reliability of Econometric Software

By B. D. McCullough and H. D. Vinod

Journal of Economic Literature, June 1999

Numerous examples show that some econometric software packages contain serious flaws, and that users cannot safely assume that their software is accurate. A brief survey of the fundamentals of computer arithmetic discusses the sources of numerical error a...

Adam Smith: Critical Theorist?

By Keith Tribe

Journal of Economic Literature, June 1999

The bicentenary of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations in 1976 was marked by the publication of a new complete edition of his works and correspondence, bringing together for the first time all extant published and unpublished writings. A basis was thereby prov...

Trying to Explain Home Bias in Equities and Consumption

By Karen K. Lewis

Journal of Economic Literature, June 1999

Investors hold a substantially larger proportion of their wealth portfolios in domestic assets than standard portfolio theory would suggest, a phenomenon called "equity home bias." In the absence of this bias, investors would optimally diversify domestic ...

Book Reviews

Journal of Economic Literature, March 1999

The Young Person's Guide to Writing Economic Theory

By William Thomson

Journal of Economic Literature, March 1999

I formulate recommendations to young authors for writing economic theory well. I state general principles of good writing, and emphasize the role of the different components of a paper and the importance of the structure of one's work being clear. I expla...

The New Growth Evidence

By Jonathan Temple

Journal of Economic Literature, March 1999

Why do growth rates differ? This paper surveys the recent empirical literature on economic growth, starting with a discussion of stylized facts, data problems, and statistical methods. Six research questions are emphasized, drawing on growth and convergen...

Explaining African Economic Performance

By Paul Collier and Jan Willem Gunning

Journal of Economic Literature, March 1999

Africa has had slow growth and a massive exodus of capital. In many respects it has been the most capital-hostile region. We review and interpret the aggregate-level and microeconomic literatures to identify the key explanations for this performance. Ther...

The Provision of Incentives in Firms

By Canice Prendergast

Journal of Economic Literature, March 1999

This paper provides an overview of the existing theoretical and empirical work on the provision of incentives. It reviews the costs and benefits of many types of pay-for-performance, such as piece rates, promotions, and long-term incentives. The main conc...

The Determinants of Earnings: A Behavioral Approach

By Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis, and Melissa Osborne

Journal of Economic Literature, December 2001

We survey the determinants of earnings and propose a framework for understanding labor market success. We suggest that the advantages of the children of successful parents go considerably beyond the benefits of superior education, the inheritance of wealt...

Business and Social Networks in International Trade

By James E. Rauch

Journal of Economic Literature, December 2001

The first two main sections survey the roles of transnational networks in alleviating problems of contract enforcement and providing information about trading opportunities, respectively. The next section covers how domestic networks influence internation...

A Ricardo-Sraffa Paradigm Comparing Gains from Trade in Inputs and Finished Goods

By Paul A. Samuelson

Journal of Economic Literature, December 2001

Here is how the 1817 Ricardo comparative advantage trade benefit analysis has to be modified to take account of post-1960 Sraffian benefits from capital-using technologies. By bringing J. S. Mill's demand model up to date in terms of its implicit geometri...

Review of de Soto's The Mystery of Capital

By Christopher Woodruff

Journal of Economic Literature, December 2001

In The Mystery of Capital, Hernando de Soto promotes his explanation of why formal capital markets function poorly in developing countries. De Soto argues that much of the population of developing countries lacks access to credit, not because the...

Book Reviews

Journal of Economic Literature, December 2001

Front Matter

American Economic Review, December 2010