Economics 258

Contemporary Problems in Economics

"You have made me very angry...very angry indeed!!!"  Marvin The Martian

• Syllabus                                          

• Revised Schedule  

• Project #1  

• Project #2   (Paper1  Data1 , Paper2  Data2)

• Project #3                    

Articles For Class 

Note:  Most of the following articles can be downloaded from the NBER website for free from any computer on the UConn campus.  Downloads from Non-UConn computers cost approximately $5 per article.  

Enron, WorldCom, and other Corporate Scandals

• US Crony Capitalism? Corporate Scandals and Reform

• Enron Coverage at C-Span

• Worldcom Coverage at Findlaw

• Global Crossing Coverage at GXaction.org

• A Survey of Corporate Governance

• Investor Protection; Origins, Consequences and Reform

• Investor Protection and Equity Markets

• Stock Market Driven Acquisitions

Politics

• The Size and Scope of Government: Comparative Politics with Rational Politicians

• Political Economics and Public Finance

• Analysis of Florida Vote: Election 2000 (Papers , Data, Data)

Terrorism

• Education, Poverty, Political Violence and Terrorism: Is There a Causal Link?

• Interdependent Security: The Case of Identical Agents (Difficult)

• Cities and Warfare: The Impact of Terrorism on Urban Form

• The Economic Cost of Conflict: A Case Control Study for the Basque Country

• The War on Terrorism: Economic, Security and Defense Implications

Healthcare

• The Interaction of Partial Public Insurance Programs and Residual Private Insurance Markets: Evidence from the U.S. Medicare Program

• The Benefits and Costs of Newer Drugs: Evidence from the 1996 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey

• Benefits and Costs of Newer Drugs: An Update

• Medicare Policy in the 1990's

• The Efficiency of Medicare

• The Concentration of Medical Spending: An Update

Social Security

• An Assessment of the Proposals of the President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security

• The New Social Security Commission Personal Accounts: Where Is the Investment Principal?

• Redistribution in the Current U.S. Social Security System

• Potential Paths of Social Security Reform

• Social Security 

• Would a Privatized Social Security System Really Pay a Higher Rate of Return?

• The Distributional Effects of an Investment-Based Social Security System

Crime

• An Economic Analysis of Alcohol, Drugs, and Violent Crime in the National Crime Victimization Survey

• More Guns, More Crime

• Economic Conditions, Deterrence, and Juvenile Crime: Evidence From Micro Data

• Using Sentence Enhancements to Distinguish Between Deterrence and Incapacitation (Difficult)

• The Role of Discretion in the Criminal Justice System

• Juvenile Crime and Punishment

• Measuring Positive Externalities From Unobservable Victim Precaution: An Empirical Analysis of LoJack

• The Benefits of Reducing Gun Violence: Evidence from Contingent Valuation Survey Data 

• Racial Bias in Motor Vehicle Searches: Theory and Evidence (Difficult)

• An Empirical Analysis of Imprisoning Drug Offenders

• Demographic Differentials in the Demand for Alcohol and Illicit Drugs

• The Introduction of Crack Cocaine and the Rise in Urban Crime Rates

Sports

• Labor Markets in Professional Sports

• Work and Play: International Evidence of Gender Equality in Employment and Sports

International Economics

• Trade Creation and Trade Diversion Under NAFTA

• Liberalization and Incentives for Labor Migration: Theory with Applications to NAFTA (Difficult)

• Regional Integration and Foreign Direct Investment

• U.S. Mexico Integration and Regional Economies: Evidence from Border City Pairs

• European Financial Markets after the EMU a first Assessment

• Everything you always wanted to know about the European Monetary Union, but were afraid to ask!

• The Future of EMU: What does the History of Monetary Unions Tell Us?

• "The Mexican Peso Crisis: How Much Did We Know? When Did We Know It?", by Sebastian Edwards

• "What Caused the Asian Currency and Financial Crisis?", Giancarlo Corsetti, et al.

Education

• Estimating the Social Return to Higher Education: Evidence From Longitudinal and Repeated Cross-Sectional Data

• The Evidence on Class Size

• Do Higher Salaries Buy Better Teachers?

• Do Peers Affect Student Achievement? 

• Teachers, Schools, and Academic Achievement

• The Cost of Accountability

• Would School Choice Change the Teaching Profession?

• School Choice and School Productivity (or Could School Choice be a Tide that Lifts All Boats?)

• Private School Vouchers and Student Achievement: An Evaluation of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program

Information Technology and E-Commerce

• The Information Technology Revolution and the Stock Market: Evidence

• Does the Internet Make Markets More Competitive? 

• Free Riding and Sales Strategies for The Internet

• Measuring Prices and Price Competition Online: Amazon and Barnes and Noble

• The Effects of Business-to-Business E-Commerce on Transaction Costs

• In a World Without Borders: The Impact of Taxes on Internet Commerce

• Wiring the Labor Market

• Does the "New Economy" Measure up to Great Inventions of the Past?

• Do We Have A New E-Conomy?

• The Impact of Information Technology on Emergency Health Care Outcomes

• Information Technology and the Future of Cities

Fun Articles

• Attack of The Giant Shopping Carts

• Return of The Giant Shopping Carts

• Taken To the Cleaners? (Why Does it Cost More to Clean Women's Shirts?)

• The Perfect Tax 

• Thinking Outside the Box Office (Pal Krugman's Take on Ticket Scalping)

• Soft Microeconomics;The Case Against You Know Who

• A Taxing Situation (Bill O'Reilly's Suggested Revisions to the TAx Code)

• Is More Sex Safer Sex?  

• Rat Democracy?

• If Ebay Ran the Election

• Win, Place, and No!

• Party Tricks and Campaign Finance Reform

• Short Changed? Why Do Tall People Make More Money?

• Click, Clack and Car Talk (What's the Social Cost of Car Phones?)

• The Great Banana Revolution (Should You Peel a Banana From the Bottom Up?)

• $10 A Foot (Should We Stop Paul Morgan From Amputating His Feet on the Web?)

• Why Are We Getting So Fat?

• Why God Created Junk Food

• Sex, Discipline, and Your Refrigerator

Television News

• Fox News

• CNN

• CNBC

• MSNBC

• ABC News

• CBS News

• The News Hour With Jim Lehrer

Print News

• The New York Times

• The Washington Post

• The Washington Times

• The Boston Globe

• BBC News

• The Financial Times

• The Los Angeles Times

• NPR

• The Wall Street Journal

• UPI Wire

• Associated Press

• Reuters

Sources for Other Interesting Stuff

• Slate Magazine

• Paul Krugman's Official Web Page

• Roubini's Global Macro Page

• NBER Digest

• The Dismal Scientist

• Economics at About.com

• Network Externalities  

• The Euro Homepage

• Samuel Brittan's Web Page

• The Brookings Institute

• The American Enterprise Institute

• The Electronic Policy Network

• The Electronic Policy Institute

• The Cato Institute

• National Policy Association

Data

• BEA (Bureau of Economic Analysis):  More information that you would ever possibly want about the NIPA (National Income & Product) accounts.

• BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics): Good for price and employment data

• CBO (Congressional Budget Office): Good for detailed government budget information

• Economic Time Series Page: A great site,lots and lots of time series, but I think its a pay site now.

• NBER (National Bureau for Economic Research): Not bad, but the data is slightly dated

• FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data): Very good site. Many Time Series.

• IMF (International Monetary Fund): Lots of news pertaining to member countries.

• World Bank: Similar to IMF site

• Penn World Tables 5.6(Zip File): Contains data on 30 variables for about 150 countries over the years 1950-92. Good for international comparisons. Easy to use.

• PACIFIC Exchange Rate Service: Canadian site.  Lots of interesting stuff, but focuses mainly on Canadian Dollar.  Some good links

• Federal Reserve Bank of New York: Daily spot and forward rate quotes.

• CME (Chicago Mercantile Exchange): Good for information on currency futures and options. A little confusing.

• National Center For Education Statistics:  Good for international comparisons of educational achievements

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