changing threat perceptions and the efficient provisioning of international security this paper proposes a mechanism for structuring international institutions to efficiently provision global security against the threat of a rogue nation the effects of security effort by an alliance member are assumed to be non rival and non excludable for other members specifically this effort has both positive and negative effects as security measures prevent attacks by the rogue nation but also involves loss of commercial and diplomatic benefits further the alliance members are assumed to have heterogeneous tastes regarding the desired security level the allies act strategically vis a vis one another with regard to security provision and the alliance a whole acts strategically with respect to the rogue nation which strategizes in turn importantly this paper investigates how the evolution of public opinion in the respective countries facing the rogue nation s threat impacts the proposed mechanism

the role of investment specific technological change in the business cycle this is a quantitative investigation of the importance of technological change speci c to new investment goods for postwar us aggregate uctuations a growth model that incorporates this form of technological change is calibrated to us data and simulated using the relative price of new equipment to identify the process driving investmentspeci c technology shocks the analysis suggests that this form of technological change is the source of about 30 of output uctuations 2000 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

growth accounting with investment specific technological progress a discussion of two approaches two approaches taken to the embodiment question are compared and discussed quantitative theory and traditional growth accounting the two approaches give very different estimates for the contribution of investment specific technological advance to economic growth therefore the approach taken matters it is argued that the measures used in traditional growth accounting to gauge the importance of investment specific technological progress have little economic content unlike the measure obtained from quantitative theory

market structure and the empirical specification of profit margins we present evidence from a panel of u k manufacturing industries to test the sensitivity of the margins concentration relationship to specification changes in the dependent variable instrumental variable estimates demonstrate that a positive association between profit margins and concentration is contingent on how the margin is formulated

economics of alliances the lessons for collective action this essay provides an up to date summary of the findings of the literature on the economics of alliances we show that the study of the economics of alliances has played a pivotal role in understanding and applying public good analysis to real world applications we establish that the manner in which alliances address burden sharing and allocative issues is related to strategic doctrines weapon technology perceived threats and membership composition past contributions are evaluated and areas needing further development are identified the theoretical and empirical knowledge gained from the study of alliances is shown to be directly applicable to a wide range of international collectives

economic models of nato abstract the seminal work of olson and zeckhauser 1966 on the economic theory of alliances in particular nato provides the theoretical background for this paper after restating their results on alliance allocation behavior in a formal framework we show that these results may fail in a context with decentralized production of the public defense commodity finally we introduce a simple mechanism which allows the implementation of an efficient allocation characterized by proportional burden sharing and cost monotonicity these results can also be applied to other public goods problems

alternative collective goods models of military alliances theory and empirics i introduction in a seminal article mancur olson and richard zeckhauser 1966 characterized the north atlantic treaty organization nato in the mid 1960s as a group of allies who shared a pure public good in the form of deterrence to qualify as a pure public good a good s benefits must be nonexcludable i e available to all group members once provided and nonrival in consumption i e consumption opportunities associated with a unit of the good do not decline with the number of users pure public goods are characterized by free riding behavior owing to non excludability which permits individuals to partake in the benefits of the good without expending their own scarce resources olson and zeckhauser also demonstrated that a pure public good such as deterrence is associated with an exploitation hypothesis whereby the large agents allies shoulder the payment burdens of the small agents allies using data from 1964 olson and zeckhauser 1966 274 77 established that defense burdens are positively correlated with the economic size of the allies as measured by gross national product gnp over the next twenty five years a large literature has generalized and extended the olson and zeckhauser collective goods theory of alliances van ypersele de strihou 1967 recognized that defense expenditures could generate country specific private benefits e g disaster relief protection of colonies management of domestic unrest along with purely public deterrence with the presence of ally specific benefits the strength of the exploitation hypothesis is attenuated since a small ally might willingly shoulder a relatively large burden provided that this ally views its defense expenditures as possessing a large share of nation specific benefits in a series of articles murdoch sandler and others 1 formulated a joint product model in which the military activity of an ally yields pure public impure public and or private jointly produced outputs or benefits if the benefits derived from the allies military expenditures were from a single purely public good then the joint product model would obviously degenerate to the model of olson and zeckhauser 1966 murdoch and sandler 1984 sandler and forbes 1980 and sandler and murdoch 1990 have shown that the joint product model outperforms the pure public good deterrence model for nato during various time periods in recent years a number of important contributions to the collective good analysis of alliances have appeared these include the inclusion of foreign trade considerations wong 1991 marginal cost differentials among allies mcguire 1990 weber and wiesmeth 1991 leader follower behavior bruce 1990 and median voter considerations dudley and montmarquette 1981 murdoch sandler and hansen 1991 and okamura 1991 mcguire and groth 1985 engineered an econometric procedure for distinguishing between allocative processes e g non cooperative and cooperative within an alliance while subsequent work by sandler and murdoch 1990 operationalized this econometric procedure until now collective good models of alliances have computed alliancewide defense levels by simply summing the allies expenditures however the appropriate manner for aggregating defense efforts among allies may depend on geographical strategic and technological determinants for example the defense efforts of the weakest ally or link along a front may determine the strength of the allies defenses since the enemy s ability to penetrate behind the front hinges on the weakest fortification hirshleifer 1983 in consequence the minimal defense level of the allies and not the sum determines alliance capabilities the purpose of this paper is fivefold first we intend to look at different methods of aggregating allies military expenditures to determine alliancewide defense levels three procedures summation weakest link and best shot are examined

durable goods investment shocks and the comovement problem sticky price models suggest that capital investment shocks are an important driver of business cycle fluctuations despite quantitative importance in explaining business cycles a comovement problem emerges because the shocks generate intertemporal substitution effects away from consumption toward investment this paper resolves the problem by extending the standard sticky price model to a two sector model with consumer durable services when durable goods are used as investment in capital and consumer durables positive capital investment shocks also generate intratemporal substitution effects away from consumer durable services toward nondurable consumption that dominates intertemporal effects consequently consumption increases and the comovement problem is resolved

investment specific technological change and growth accounting greenwood et al 1997 long run implications of investment specific technological change american economic review 87 3 342 362 and 2000 the role of investment specific technological change in the business cycle european economic review 44 91 115 and hercowitz 1998 the embodiment controversy a review essay journal of monetary economics 41 217 224 have claimed that the jorgenson form of growth accounting is conceptually flawed and severely understates the importance of technological progress embodied in new capital goods for explaining growth to the contrary this paper shows that in its technology aspects their model is a special case of the jorgensonian growth accounting model what they call investment specific technological change is shown to be closely related to the more familiar concept of total factor productivity tfp growth statements about the one can be translated into statements about the other empirically differences between their conclusions and those of growth accounting studies about the extent to which embodiment explains us economic growth are found to relate more to data than to methodology

shocks structures or monetary policies the euro area and us after 2001 abstract the us federal reserve cut interest rates more vigorously in the recent recession than the european central bank did by comparison with the fed the ecb followed a more measured course of action we use an estimated dynamic general equilibrium model with financial frictions to show that comparisons based on such simple metrics as the variance of policy rates are misleading we find that because there is greater inertia in the ecb s policy rule the ecb s policy actions actually had a greater stabilizing effect than did those of the fed as a consequence a potentially severe recession turned out to be only a slowdown and inflation never departed from levels consistent with the ecb s quantitative definition of price stability other factors that account for the different economic outcomes in the euro area and us include differences in shocks and differences in the degree of wage and price flexibility

the time varying volatility of macroeconomic fluctuations we investigate the sources of the important shifts in the volatility of us mac roeconomic variables in the postwar period to this end we propose the esti mation of dsge models allowing for time variation in the volatility of the structural innovations we apply our estimation strategy to a large scale model of the business cycle and find that shocks specific to the equilibrium condition of investment account for most of the sharp decline in volatility of the last two decades jel c51 e32

intangible capital and the rise in wage and hours volatility in a standard real business cycle model extended to include intangible capital ic i show that a rise in the income share of ic in the production function in line with data can account for a significant share of the increase in real wage volatility both absolute and relative to income and labor input volatility relative to income observed in the u s since the mid 1980 s even as volatility of output declined intangible capital accumulates stochastically and similar to final goods requires physical capital intangible capital and labor to produce under these conditions an increase in the share of ic in production increases the propagation of the ic specific shock which raises absolute and relative wage and labor input volatility the higher propagation of the ic shock also accounts for the large decline in the pro cyclicality of labor productivity relative to both output and labor observed during this period

market structure and price cost margins in a paper that has become a standard reference in the structure conductperformance approach to industrial economics cowling and waterson 1976 developed a theoretical rationale for expecting industry profitability to be positively correlated with the level of concentration their model based on a simple algebraic description of oligopoly behaviour has been interpreted as providing a justification for the common empirical practice of cross industry regression analysis of price cost margins in terms of concentration levels in the present paper we show that on further examination this model implies a joint determination of margins and concentration this provides some interesting comparative static results of relevance to inter industry differences in concentration levels equally however it leads to various cautionary insights concerning the meaning of price cost margin versus concentration regressions

intermediate inputs and sectoral comovement in the business cycle abstract the post war us business cycle is characterized by positive comovement of employment and output across sectors it has been argued that multi sector growth models are inconsistent with this observation when changes in relative productivities are the main source of fluctuations we suggest that the input output structure of an economy in particular the pervasive use of intermediate inputs can induce positive comovement in sectoral employment and output following changes in relative productivities we calibrate a model of the us economy for the durable and nondurable goods producing sectors and show that sectoral employment and output move together if intermediate inputs are used in production the model is also consistent with the observation that the relative price of nondurable goods is procyclical

the empirical specification of price cost margins abstract this paper examines why results for profit margin regressions may depend on whether the margin is deflated by industry sales or value added it attributes disparate results to stage of production effects which occur because the price elasticity of demand is an omitted variable

free riding and paid riding in the fight against terrorism overt terrorist acts and the specter of terrorism impose significant costs on the community of civilized nations these costs can be reduced by taking retaliatory action against terrorist organizations and the countries that sponsor them assuming a positive range over which retaliatory cost is less at the marginal than the resulting benefit from reduced terrorism there exists some positive level of retaliation which is efficient from the perspective of the victimized countries an obstacle to achieving the efficient level of retaliation against terrorists results from the fact that much of the benefit from retaliation is general and cannot be captured entirely by the retaliating country a fully efficient policy of retaliation will therefore require a cooperative response from all victimized countries achieving this cooperation however may confront the well known free rider or prisoner s dilemma problem while collectively the targets and potential targets of terrorism are better off retaliating each will likely see its advantage best served by not retaliating in this case it is quite possible that no one will retaliate when the best response is for everyone to retaliate a closer look at the problem of terrorism however suggests that the standard prisoner s dilemma may not be a significant obstacle to retaliation under plausible conditions it will pay one country to retaliate even if other countries choose to free ride indeed given the two options in the standard prisoner s dilemma setting cooperating retaliating or noncooperating nonretaliating it is very likely that all victimized countries will retaliate that no country will take a free ride but this does not mean that the prospects for genuine cooperation in confronting terrorism are good in the case of retaliation against terrorist free riding is only one way a country can increase the net benefit it receives from the public good provided by another it is possible for one country to in effect sell the public good of reduced terrorism that is generated by the retaliation of another country this paidrider possibility has important and obviously adverse implications for the prospects that retaliation will result from a cooperative effort on the part of those countries victimized by terrorists in section i the implication of free riding and paid riding for retaliation against terrorists will be investigated in a two country setting in section ii the circumstances that either encourage or discourage a country from being a paid rider on the retaliation of another country will be considered and some real world examples of paid riding will be discussed

structuring international institutions for the efficient provisioning of global security this paper analyzes the issue of security provision by an alliance against the threat of a rogue nation proactive security effort by an alliance member is assumed to be non rival and non excludable so the results of the effort jointly accrue to every other member this effort has both positive and negative effects as security measures mitigate the threat but also involve loss of commercial benefits collateral damages and infringement on human rights in this paper i suggest an institutional structure for the alliance which would lead to the achievement of the efficient level of world security through multilateral participation

modeling investment sector efficiency shocks when does disaggregation matter the most straightforward way to analyze investment sector productivity developments is to construct a two sector model with a sector specific productivity shock an often used modeling shortcut accounts for such developments using a one sector model with shocks to the efficiency of investment in a capital accumulation equation this shortcut is theoretically justified when some stringent conditions are satisfied using a two sector model we consider the implications of relaxing several of the conditions that are at odds with the u s input output tables including equal factor shares across sectors the effects of productivity shocks to an investment producing sector of our two sector model differ from those of efficiency shocks to investment in a one sector model notably expansionary productivity shocks boost consumption in every period whereas expansionary efficiency shocks cause consumption to fall substantially for many periods

global terrorism deterrence versus pre emption this paper analyses two anti terrorism policies when a targeted nation s people and property are in jeopardy at home and abroad a country s deterrence decision involves both external benefits and costs as the terrorist threat is deflected while its preemption decision typically gives external benefits when the threat is reduced for all potential targets with damages limited to home interests a country will overdeter while for globalized terror a country will underdeter pre emption is usually undersupplied leader follower behaviour is apt to lessen inefficiency for deterrence but worsen inefficiency for pre emption compared with simultaneous choice equilibrium allocations targeted nations can never achieve the proper counterterrorism policy through leadership ce memoire analyse deux politiques anti terrorisme quand la population et la propriete des nations visees sont en danger tant au pays qu a l etranger la decision de dissuasion d un pays entraine des avantages et des couts externes a proportion que la menace terroriste est evitee alors que la decision de preemption produit typiquement des avantages externes quand la menace est reduite pour toutes les cibles potentielles dans le cas de dommages limites aux cibles dans le pays un pays va etre portea sur dissuader alors que dans le cas de terreur globalisee un pays va etre portea sous dissuader la preemption est generalement sous offerte le comportement leader suiveur est susceptible de reduire l inefficacite de la dissuasion mais d empirer l inefficacite de la preemption par rapport a ce qui se passe quand les choix sont simultanes les nations visees ne peuvent jamais en arriver a la politique d anti terrorisme appropriee par la voie du leadership

terrorist backlash terrorism mitigation and policy delegation abstract this paper presents a three stage proactive game involving terrorists elected policymakers and voters in each of two targeted countries a representative voter chooses an elected policymaker charged with deciding proactive countermeasures to ameliorate a transnational terrorist threat two primary considerations drive the voters strategic choice free riding on the other countries countermeasures and limiting a reprisal terrorist attack the resulting low proactive countermeasures benefit the terrorists whose attacks successfully exploit voters strategic actions this finding stems from a delegation problem where leadership by voters has a detrimental consequence on the well being of targeted countries domestic politics add another layer of concern when addressing a common terrorist threat

the dynamic effects of neutral and investment specific technology shocks the neoclassical growth model is used to identify the short run effects of neutral technology shocks which affect the production of all goods homogeneously and investment specific shocks which affect only investment goods the real equipment price crucial for identifying the investment shocks experiences an abrupt increase in its average rate of decline in 1982 so the analysis is based on a split sample on the basis of the preferred specification the two technology shocks account for 73 percent of hours and 44 percent of output s business cycle variation before 1982 and 38 percent and 80 percent afterward the shocks also account for more than 40 percent of hours and 58 percent of output s forecast errors over a three to eight year horizon in both samples the majority of these effects are driven by the investment shocks

real business cycles in this paper we demonstrate how certain very ordinary economic principles lead maximizing individuals to choose consumption production plans that display many of the characteristics commonly associated with business cycles our explanation is entirely consistent with i rational expectations ii complete current information iii stable preferences iv no technological change v no long lived commodities vi no frictions or adjustment costs vii no government viii no money and ix no serial dependence in the stochastic elements of the environment we also provide a completely worked out example of the type of artificial economy we have in mind the time series properties of the example exhibit some major features of observed business cycles although this type of model may not be capable of explaining all of the regularities in actual business cycles we believe that it provides a useful well defined benchmark for assessing the relative importance of factors e g monetary disturbances

the elementary economics of social dilemmas a social dilemma is in essence a prisoners dilemma in a continuous strategy space i discuss a number of social dilemmas that have caught my attention offer an elementary diagrammatic synthesis of them and discuss some of the economic insights that the diagrams capture including incentives for pre commitment finally i model pre commitment via delegation and link results to the literature on the evolution of preferences l economie elementaire des dilemmes sociaux un dilemme social est essentiellement un dilemme du prisonnier dans un espace continu de strategie l auteur discute d un certain nombre de dilemmes sociaux qui ont retenu son attention il en propose une synthese graphique elementaire et discute certaines des suggestions economiques qui decoulent de ces diagrammes comme par exemple les incitations a se pre engager finalement l auteur construit un modele de pre engagement par delegation et relie ses resultats a la litterature sur l evolution des references