James E. Hartley

The representative agent in macroeconomics

Rpresentative agent models have become a predominant means of studying the macroeconomy in modern economics without there being much discussion in the literature about their propriety or usefulness. This volume evaluates the use of these models in macroeconomics, examining the justifications for their use and concluding that representative agent models are neither a proper nor a particularly useful means of studying aggregate behaviour.

Real Business Cycles : A Reader

Real Business Cycle theory combines the remains of monetarism with the new classical macroeconomics, and has become one of the dominant approaches within contemporary macroeconomics today. This volume presents: * the authoritative anthology in RBC. The work contains the major articles introducing and extending the theory as well as critical literature * an extensive introduction which contains an expository summary and critical evaluation of RBC theory * comprehensive coverage and balance between seminal papers and extensions; proponents and critics; and theory and empirics. Macroeconomics is a compulsory element in most economics courses, and this book will be an essential guide to one of its major theories.

The Great Books and Economics

Abstract The author describes an introductory economics course in which all of the reading material is drawn from the Great Books of Western Civilization. He explains the rationale and mechanics of the course. An annotated course syllabus details how the reading material relates to the lecture material.

Calibration and Real Business Cycle Models: An Unorthodox Experiment

Abstract This paper examines the calibration methodology used in real business cycle (RBC) theory. We confront the calibrator with data from artificial economies (various Keynesian macroeconomic models) and examine whether a prototypical real business cycle model, when calibrated to these data sets using standard methods, can match a selected set of sample moments. We find that the calibration methodology does constitute a discriminating test in that the calibrated real business cycle models cannot match the moments from all the artificial economies we study. In particular, we find the RBC model can only match the moments of economies whose moments are close to actual U.S. data.

Reform During Crisis: The Transformation of California's Fiscal System During the Great Depression

In the midst of the Great Depression, California engaged in a massive restructuring of its tax system, reducing reliance on the property tax and introducing sales and income taxes. Our analysis suggests that this restructuring, which included a voter referendum, was primarily driven by a desire to change the mix rather than the level of taxation. Nonetheless, by introducing new taxes that had a higher revenue elasticity than the existing taxes, California created a revenue system that allowed the rapid growth of spending to continue.

Kydland and Prescott's Nobel Prize: the methodology of time consistency and real business cycle models

Abstract Finn Kydland and Edward Prescott won the 2004 Nobel Prize in Economics for their work on time consistency and real business cycle models. What united the work in these two papers is the method of modeling the economy. In the mid-1970s, Kydland and Prescott set out to use optimal control theory in a rational expectations model, and ended up being credited with a sea change in the manner in which economists think about central banking. In the early 1980s, Kydland and Prescott set out to look at the effect of time-to-build and ended up being credited with a monumental change in the manner in which economists study the macroeconomy. An overview of their Nobel-meriting work both shows what they were trying to accomplish and how well they accomplished their aim.

GEOSCIENCE RESEARCH AT LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGES: SCHOOL RANKINGS

Liberal arts colleges have in recent years placed an increasing emphasis on research. In this environment of increased interest in research at liberal arts colleges we present a ranking of research in geoscience at national liberal arts colleges based upon articles published in GeoRef listed journals. We find that the research activity is highly concentrated among a few schools. We also find that liberal arts faculty are interested in teaching geoscience as measured by the number of publications in the Journal of Geoscience Education and that there is a positive correlation between faculty research at an institution and the undergraduates who go on to receive Ph.D.s in geoscience.

More News From Abroad: Educational Changes in the United Kingdom

In this article, I review recent changes in higher education in the United Kingdom (UK). These changes fall under 4 headings: organization, numbers, finance, and teaching quality. The general picture is one of increasing student numbers, static—if not declining—faculty and staff numbers, and reduced resources. In this article, I assess the impact of these changes on the teaching and learning of psychology in the UK.

Which Countries are Studied Most by Economists? An Examination of the Regional Distribution of Economic Research

This paper examines the distribution of economic research as catalogued in the Journal of Economic Literature across countries of the world and attempts to explain those patterns. We report the number of articles published on each country and estimate a series of regressions to understand this pattern. We find that measures of a countrys size (physical and economic), connections with the outside world and data availability explain much of the pattern of research. We also find that tourism receipts, whether English is an official language, and the number of economic research institutions are significantly correlated with the amount of research done on a country. After controlling for all the variables, we find only three regions (all in Africa) with significantly less research published by economists in Journal of Economic Literature cataloged articles than North America. Copyright 2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd..

A Skeptical Note on the Importance of Technology Shocks

This paper tests whether a real business cycle model can be built using a specific technological shock, a change in the depreciation rate, instead of an aggregate multiplicative shock. The model cannot duplicate standard business cycle facts.