Turnover, wages, and adverse selection

An argument that adverse selection in the labor market can explain why frequent job-changers have lower average wages and flatter age-earnings profiles than workers who change jobs infrequently. Adverse selection also provides a basis for examining the welfare implications of low-productivity workers in the labor market.Wages ; Labor mobility

Monetary policy in an economy with nominal wage contracts

A demonstration that optimal monetary policy can be either procyclical or countercyclical in a model where wages are "sticky" because of a nominal contracting constraint.Monetary policy ; Wages

A two-sector implicit contracting model with procyclical quits and involuntary layoffs

An explanation of involuntary unemployment and procyclical quits based on models of implicit contracts and on-the-job search.Unemployment

Academic Librarianship and Career Adaptability

The inspiration for this essay is Barbara Fister’s assertion that librarians must embrace functions that have not traditionally been part of the academic librarian’s portfolio. We shall examine the need for career adaptability in librarianship and use a case study to illustrate the four attributes librarians need to develop to ensure career adaptability. The case study involved collaboration between Kansas State University (KSU) Libraries, an agronomy professor, and the Global Research Alliance to develop an open access croplands research database. We will draw upon the field of vocational psychology to discuss career adaptability and ways librarians can develop the traits needed for good career adaptability: career concern, career control, career curiosity and career confidence (4 Cs) (Savickas, 2005)

Optimal Monetary Policy in a Small Open Economy: A General Equilibrium Analysis

This paper uses a small open economy model to address two outstanding issues in monetary policy: (1) what restrictions on the policy rule ensure that the central bank does not introduce real indeterminacy into the economy, and (2) what is the optimal long run rate of inflation. The small open economy model provides unique insights on both fronts. In the case of determinacy issues, the model’s simplicity makes the analysis remarkably transparent. As for long run inflation rates, a small open economy takes as given the foreign nominal interest rate. To the extent that this rate distorts domestic behavior, there is a role for positive domestic nominal rates (in contrast to Friedman’s celebrated optimum quantity of money). This motivation arises naturally in the setting of a small open economy.

Marginal tax rates and income inequality: a quantitative-theoretic analysis

An Auerbach-Kotlikoff (AK) overlapping-generations model is used to examine how changes in marginal income-tax rate structures affect the distribution of income, drawing on actual changes to the U.S. tax code. This approach builds on AK by allowing for many different cohort types, and hence for a nontrivial endogenous distribution of income.Income distribution ; Income tax

Government consumption, taxation, and economic activity

The authors use a stylized model of the economy to analyze how permanent and temporary increases in government expenditure--and the timing of taxation used to finance them--affect aggregate output and other variables that describe the economy.Expenditures, Public ; Deficit financing

Inflation, personal taxes, and real output: a dynamic analysis

An examination, using the overlapping-generations approach, of how the interactions between inflation and the nominal taxation of capital income affect the cyclical behavior of the U.S. economy.Inflation (Finance) ; Business cycles ; Income tax

Bracket creep in the age of indexing: have we solved the problem?

An examination of the inflation-indexing provisions contained in the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 and the Tax Reform Act of 1986.Indexation (Economics) ; Income tax