Anomalies: Closed-End Mutual Funds

By Charles M. C. Lee, Andrei Shleifer, and Richard H. Thaler

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 1990

The pricing of closed-end funds presents several puzzles. The following are the four sets of facts that any theory of closed-end fund pricing must address. 1) New funds appear on the market at a premium and move rapidly to a discount. 2) Closed-end funds ...

Retrospectives: A Dismal Romantic

By Joseph Persky

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 1990

Economists like to think of their discipline as queen of the social sciences. Unfortunately, our vocation is more likely to be berated as "the dismal science." This witticism has a checkered history. In the popular mind, economists are viewed as "dismal" ...

Policy Watch: Economics and the Clean Air Act

By Paul R. Portney

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 1990

The Clean Air Act, arguably the nation's most important environmental statute, is sure to be amended by the 101st Congress. In neither its current nor its likely new form does the Act feature much of a role for economic considerations. In fact, one approa...

Recommendations for Further Reading

By Bernard Saffran

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 1990

Puzzles: Professional Advice and Other Hazards

By Suzanne Scotchmer

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 1990

This edition includes four puzzles, all with answers given at the end.

Correspondence

By Peter S. Spiro

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 1990

Correspondence regarding: Symposium on the Budget Deficit Symposium on New Institutions for Developing Country Debt

Notes

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 1990

Index to Volume 4

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 1990

Front Matter

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 1990

An Introduction to the Law and Economics of Intellectual Property

[Symposium: Intellectual Property]

By Stanley M. Besen and Leo J. Raskind

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 1991

Although economists have written on topics of intellectual property for a long time, the impact of economics on public policy in this area has been slight, especially as compared to the influence of professional writings in areas such as antitrust and tax...

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: Cumulative Research and the Patent Law

[Symposium: Intellectual Property]

By Suzanne Scotchmer

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 1991

Most innovators stand on the shoulders of giants, and never more so than in the current evolution of high technologies, where almost all technical progress builds on a foundation provided by earlier innovators. Most economics literature on patenting and p...

A Patent System for Both Diffusion and Exclusion

[Symposium: Intellectual Property]

By Janusz A. Ordover

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 1991

Public policy analysis of optimal patent regimes is often framed as a tradeoff between static and dynamic efficiency. In this analytical framework, weak patent protection and strict antitrust policy are taken to be directed toward static concerns, while p...

Some Economics of Trade Secret Law

[Symposium: Intellectual Property]

By David D. Friedman, William M. Landes, and Richard A. Posner

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 1991

Despite the practical importance of trade secrets to the business community, the law of trade secrets is a neglected orphan in economic analysis. This paper sketches an approach to the economics of trade secret law that connects it more closely both to ot...

Taking Stock: A Critical Assessment of Recent Research on Inventories

By Alan S. Blinder and Louis J. Maccini

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 1991

Empirical and theoretical aspects of inventory behavior became hot topics in the 1950s and early 1960s. No one seemed to notice the tension that was developing between the emerging macroeconomic and microeconomic views of inventories. Macroeconomists rout...

Institutions

By Douglass C. North

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 1991

Institutions are the humanly devised constraints that structure political, economic, and social interaction. They consist of both informal constraints (sanctions, taboos, customs, traditions, and codes of conduct), and formal rules (constitutions, laws, p...

Efficient Transportation Infrastructure Policy

By Clifford Winston

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 1991

This paper offers a perspective on paying for and investing in the transportation infrastructure. The following example illustrates the need to move away from the current national mind set. Pick any pothole-laden, congested two-lane road in an urban area....

Is Probability Theory Relevant for Uncertainty? A Post Keynesian Perspective

By Paul Davidson

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 1991

Mainstream perspectives involving uncertainty presume that expectations are based on either a statistical analysis of past data, with market signals providing information about objective probabilities, or on subjective perceptions of these probabilities f...

The When, the How and the Why of Mathematical Expression in the History of Economic Analysis

By Philip Mirowski

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 1991

In writings about the history of the use of mathematical expression in economics, there seems to be a conviction that the movement towards its current flowering was cumulative, inevitable, and indeed, natural. While, such notions are widely held among pra...

Grade Inflation and Course Choice

By Richard Sabot and John Wakeman-Linn

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 1991

A conflict exists between the incentives offered to students and the institutional goal of increased science and math education. Students make their course choices in response to a powerful set of incentives: grades. These incentives have been systematica...

Distinguished Fellow: An Appreciation of Guy Orcutt

By Harold W. Watts

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 1991

Guy Henderson Orcutt, Distinguished Fellow of our Association. has now moved to a new phase of his career (retirement). Most of Guy's career has been at four universities: Michigan, where he earned all three degrees, Harvard, Wisconsin, and Yale. In betwe...