D - Microeconomics
-
-
Translog ou Cobb-Douglas? Le rôle des durées d'utilisation des facteurs
Using French data on industrial firms over the period 1989-2001, the authors estimate a "flexible" Translog production function that accounts for the volumes and durations of factor utilization. -
Durées d'utilisation des facteurs et fonction de production : une estimation par la méthode des moments généralisés en système
Although a number of studies have demonstrated the importance of the degree of factor utilization in economic analysis, the impact of the durations of utilization in a production function remains largely unknown, particularly in terms of the duration of equipment utilization. -
Public Venture Capital and Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship is a key factor in promoting growth in output and employment. Consequently, to encourage new start-ups, most governments in developed countries have public venture capital programs. -
The Economic Theory of Retail Pricing: A Survey
The types of contracts that arise in a typical vertical manufacturer–retailer relationship are more sophisticated than usually assumed in standard macroeconomic models. -
Are Distorted Beliefs Too Good to be True?
In a recent attempt to account for the equity-premium puzzle within a representative-agent model, Cecchetti, Lam, and Mark (2000) relax the assumption of rational expectations and in its place use the assumption of distorted beliefs. The author shows that the explanatory power of the distorted beliefs model is due to an inconsistency in the model and that an attempt to remove this inconsistency removes the model's explanatory power. -
The Usefulness of Consumer Confidence Indexes in the United States
This paper assesses the usefulness of consumer confidence indexes in forecasting aggregate consumer spending in the United States. -
Entrepreneurial Risk, Credit Constraints, and the Corporate Income Tax: A Quantitative Exploration
This paper describes the positive effect that corporate income tax has on capital formation in the presence of liquidity constraints and uninsurable risk. -
Entrepreneurship, Inequality, and Taxation
This paper confirms the conjecture that the evaluation of tax policy leads to very different conclusions once the role of entrepreneurs is considered. Contrary to previous literature, the author finds that switching from a progressive to a proportional income tax system has a negligible effect on wealth inequality in the United States. -
Risk, Entropy, and the Transformation of Distributions
The exponential family, relative entropy, and distortion are methods of transforming probability distributions. We establish a link between those methods, focusing on the relation between relative entropy and distortion.