Garey C. Durden

Determining Legislative Preferences on the Minimum Wage: An Economic Approach

This paper utilizes an economic model to analyze the determinants of legislative decision making. The model is empirically tested using the statistical technique of n-chotomous multivariate probit analysis. The legislative issue addressed is the 1973 amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act. The amendment proposed to increase the minimum wage and the number of workers covered. The dependent variable denotes a representatives voting pattern on the minimum wage; the independent variables represent economic characteristics of a legislators congressional district. The hypothesized linkages between the set of independent variables and legislative voting patterns were generally substantiated in the empirical tests.

Coauthorship and publication efficiency

This study extends a recent paper by Jean Louis Heck and Peter A. Zaleski [1991] on trends in economics journal publication from 1969–89. The primary purpose of the work is to analyze the impact on article production of an observed dramatically increasing tendency toward coauthorship among scholars in economics. A simple model is tested with total (per capita) articles as a function of time, American Economic Association (AEA) membership, and articles coauthored per year. Results suggest that the increasing trend toward coauthorship enhances productivity in total and per-capita article production.

The rational behavior theory of voting participation: Evidence from the 1970 and 1982 elections

In recent years a substantial literature on the determinants of voting participation has been developed. In many of these studies voting is assumed to be an expression of rational behavior. That is, people vote when they expect that the benefits will exceed the related costs. Voting is largely an act of consumption based upon the widely held belief that one should vote to fulfill a civic duty or upon some combination of personal characteristics which is sufficiently vague to make precise measurement impossible. The rational behavior theory, however, holds that voting is influenced at the margin by personal and environmental factors which incrementally affect expected benefits and costs, making the act of voting more or less rational. Those factors which increase expected benefits will, ceteris paribus, enhance the probability that one will vote. Those factors which increase expected costs will, of course, have the opposite effect. This study is presented as a primarily empirical contribution to the literature which assumes that, since voting is an expression of rational behavior, it can be modeled and tested using standard economic analysis and methodology.The study is designed to fulfill several purposes. First, we update previous empirical work using data from the 1980 census and from the 1982 congressional elections. The results of our regressions strongly support the rational behavior theory. In addition, we test to determine whether it is less rational for southern blacks to vote as compared to their white counterparts. Our results suggest that the answer is affirmative. Tests of parameter equivalency between the 1970 and 1982 congressional elections are performed with some interesting results. Finally, tests for specification error provide evidence that the rational behavior model and congressional district data generate statistically valid estimates of the determinants of voting participation.

A method for identifying the most influential articles in an academic discipline

This paper develops a methodology, based on citation counts, for classifying journal articles as highly-cited, pre-classic, classic and super-classic. In order to establish the benchmark measures necessary for such classification, a citation analysis was done of all main articles produced in the American Economic Review from 1965 through 1985. Using the established benchmarks, 127 articles published during the review period met the minimum criteria for at least highly-cited status. In addition, a subset of 17 articles were designated as either classic or super-classic. An additional 11 articles were on a yearly citation pace to become classics and were classified as pre-classic. A few of the characteristics of these papers are noted. Evidence from other studies is presented to support the methodology developed here.

Gordon Tullock: His journal and his scholarship*

SummaryThe results presented here suggest that Public Choice is broadly cited by economists and political scientists. The journal currently ranks, approximately, in the middle of the pack with respect to various citation measures. Also, since the late seventies, the journals ranking has improved significantly relative to both social science journals and to comparable economics journals. Some of the papers published in Public Choice are well cited and several made a significant impact on the thinking of scholars in both economics and political science. Either through his work as editor or through his articles, the thought of Gordon Tullock is well represented in the elite group of articles published in Public Choice.The analysis of citations in Section 4 shows that Tullocks ideas and writing have had considerable impact on the thinking of economists. His contributions are substantial, often multi-disciplinary, and certain to be enduring.

An Analysis of Contributions and Contributors in Economic Education Research

Tabular data are provided on the journals that have published economic education articles, the topics covered, and the individual authors. Institutions are ranked by their contributions to the economic education literature.

Measuring the extent of earnings discrimination: an update

Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression and data from the March 1990 Current Population Survey are used to estimate yearly earnings averages for white males, white females, black males and black females. In order to test for the possible existence or gender and/or race discrimination, earnings estimates are decomposed, using the tradional Oaxaca (1973) and Blinder (1973) methodology. In comparing these results with those from Carlson and Swartz (1988, using 1979 data), we find that overall and unexplained residual differences have declined quite substantially, but that they still favour white males. We then incorporate an extension of the traditional methodology (Jackson and Lindley, 1989) which allows for testing for the significance of enexplained residuals, and for jointly testing for the significance of residual effect components, the constant and coefficient effects. These results call into question the unambiguous conclusion that earnings differentials uniformly favour white males. Strong support is...

Determining the classics in social choice

Summary and conclusionsDetermination of classic papers and books in any field is of interest and importance to scholars and others interested in the subject areas. Since social/public choice is such a rapidly growing field of increasing importance it seems particularly relevant that we pay tribute to the founders. One means of doing this is to analyze citations to their most important works. This process allows us to simultaneously observe the depth and breadth to which the seminal ideas in the sub-discipline have penetrated the world of social science scholarship. My methodology produces somewhat different results than those reported in the 1981 Public Choice paper by Downing and Stafford. This is not to say that their method is inferior, but that different methods produce differing results which provide readers with a wider range of information about important works in social choice.

An analysis of contributions and contributors to Public Choice and the Journal of Law and Economics; 1973–1987

Summary and concluding commentsSeveral conclusions may be drawn from the information we have presented here. First and without doubt, the University of Chicago is by far the most dominant force overall, and is particularly so with respect to the production of pages and papers published in the Journal of Law and Economics. The George Mason-Virginia Tech influence is strong with respect to Public Choice, but is not, in our opinion, dominant.One does not necessarily need to be located at a large, research-oriented school in order to publish in either journal, but these schools are the source of most contributions. This is particularly true of the JLE but significantly less so for PC. The source of contributions is very broad, but top 50 institutions account for the lions share. Contributions by persons employed at foreign institutions are important, particularly for PC.The analysis of papers and pages by degree schools of authors reveals that, while economists dominate, other disciplines are important, especially political science with respect to PC; law and business-related disciplines for JLE. These data also show that, while Chicago faculty contribute only marginally to PC, Chicago graduates exert a very strong influence. The influence of Chicago on the JLE is really notable when we rank institutions by the total contributions of both faculty and graduates, and when we rank the top 25 contributors to each journal.We hope that this paper will provide information useful to those interested, for whatever reason, in institutional and individual publishing performance with respect to the two journals. For us, the process has been difficult and time consuming, but also greatly interesting and rewarding.

The Contributions and Impact of Professor William H. Riker

This paper demonstrates the significant and extensive impactof W.H. Rikers works on the study of political science andpublic choice. We provide a citation analysis, peer reviews,and commentaries from former colleagues and students. Thecitation analysis shows that Rikers work has been cited morethan 3700 times by over 2000 different scholars in more than500 different journals. Peers, former colleagues and studentshighly respected him as a scholar and a person. Rikers mostsignificant intellectual contributions include using gametheory to analyze political behavior and incorporatingrational interest theory as a basis for the scientific studyof politics.