Gerald J. Lynch

The Effect of Teacher Course Work on Student Learning: Evidence from the TEL

A positive impact on student learning of economics is demonstrated only after a teacher has taken several courses in economics.

Velocity and the variability of anticipated and unanticipated money growth: a cross-country comparison

This paper uses a Granger causality test to determine if increased instability in the money supply of a country leads to a decline in velocity in that country. This research adds two new dimensions to the literature in this area. First, monetary growth is decomposed into anticipated and unanticipated components. Second, we extend the study to all of the G-7 countries. Our empirical results support the existence of a relationship between monetary instability and velocity growth in the G-7 countries.

The paper-bill spread and real output: what matters more, a change in the paper rate or a change in the bill rate?

Abstract This paper adds to the literature on the information content of the paper-bill spread by explicitly taking into account the two sources of wider spreads, rises in the paper rate and declines in the bill rate. Results from impulse response analysis and variance decompositions suggest that decreases in real output are greater and last longer when a widening of the paper-bill spread comes from an increase in the paper rate rather than from an equivalent decrease in the bill rate. This is consistent with the idea that changes in the commercial paper rate have greater information content about future business cycles than do changes in the Treasury bill rate.

Currency, Marginal Tax Rates, and the Underground Economy

Abstract This paper has attempted to isolate that portion of the underground economy which is both measurable and controllable. The standard variables postulated by Cagan, income and interest rates, are still important, although the value of the income elasticity of currency demand may be larger than expected. Marginal tax rates have a positive and significant influence on currency holdings, which supports Tanzis work and contradicts the findings of the Internal Revenue Service. While not all the increase in currency holdings in the last 20 years can be explained by using tax rates, somewhere between

A Supply and Demand Exposition of the Operation of a Gold Standard in a Closed Economy.

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The Principles Courses Revisited

12 billion worth of currency can be attributed to that source. While unemployment compensation ought to affect the size of the underground economy, no statistical verification can be found through the specification contained here. Finally, it is noted that the trend toward less currency holding, which one would expect from the recent banking innovations, would have occurred had not other forces offset it. One of the forces which has probably led to an increase in currency holdings is increased drug-related activity. However, that portion of the underground economy which exists because of crime has been largely ignored here because little of it can be controlled by economic policy. What is explored here is a measurement of how much underground activity we could dissuade by lowering taxes, and further, how those lower taxes would influence tax collections. The effects appear to be large enough to warrant concern about the impact of tax rates on incentives.

AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF STATE UNEMPLOYMENT RATES IN THE 1970's

Neither short-run nor long-run price stability is a necessary state of affairs under a gold standard, according to the authors. This conclusion results from an examination of possible differential rates of productivity growth in the gold and non-gold producing sectors.