The Excess Sensitivity of Layoffs and Quits to Demand

Excessive layoffs in bad times and excessive quits in good times both stem from the same weakness in practical employment arrangements: the specific nature of worker-firm relations creates a situation of bilateral monopoly. Institutions which have arisen to avert the associated inefficiency cannot mimic the separation decisions of a perfect-information, first-best allocation rule. Simple employment rules based on predetermined or indexed wages are in many cases the most desirable among the class of feasible employment arrangements. More complicated contracts which seem to deal more effectively with turnover issues are either infeasible because of informational requirements or create adverse incentives on some other dimension.

The Political Economy of Fiscal Policy

If there has been a dominant trend in the evolution of the modern industrial societies of this century it has been the growing importance of government in the allocation of social resources. It is important that we appreciate the fundamentally political nature of the formation of government economic policy. This survey reviews and assesses our present understanding of how the political system might shape a nation's fiscal policy. Our approach is eclectic, drawing both from economics and political science, and decidedly micro-analytic in its orientation. From economics we adopt the perspective of utility maximizing agents and the analytics of trade, agreement, and market failure. From political science we learn just how and when these individual agents might act collectively to provide public goods, redistribute income, or issue government debt. Together the micro-analytics of economics and political science form the core theory of the 'new' political economy and provide a framework for understanding the emergence, and the performance, of governments. There is no more important test for the new discipline than providing a compelling explanation for the formation of fiscal policy in democratic societies.

Infrared observations of P/Halley and P/Encke

Broadband optical/infrared photometers responding from 0.5 to 23 microns mounted on the Univ. of Minnesota (UM) O'Brien 76-cm telescope, Wyoming Infrared Observatory 234-cm telescope, and UM's Mount Lemmon Infrared Observatory 152-cm telescope were used to measure comet Halley more than 30 times between 12 Dec. 1985 to 6 May 1986. The Wyoming system was used to measure P/Encke on 24 Jul. 1987. The equipment and observations of Halley were fully described by Gehrz and Ney. Conclusions based on a preliminary analysis of the Halley and P/Encke data are reported

Effect of endurance training on lung function: A one year study

The official published version can be accessed from the link below.Objective: To identify in a follow up study airway changes occurring during the course of a sport season in healthy endurance athletes training in a Mediterranean region. Methods: Respiratory pattern and function were analysed in 13 healthy endurance trained athletes, either during a maximal exercise test, or at rest and during recovery through respiratory manoeuvres (spirometry and closing volume tests). The exercise test was conducted on three different occasions: during basic endurance training and then during the precompetition and competitive periods. Results: During the competitive period, a slight but non-clinically significant decrease was found in forced vital capacity (−3.5%, p = 0.0001) and an increase in slope of phase III (+25%, p = 0.0029), both at rest and after exercise. No concomitant reduction in expiratory flow rates was noticed. During maximal exercise there was a tachypnoeic shift over the course of the year (mean (SEM) breathing frequency and tidal volume were respectively 50 (2) cycles/min and 3.13 (0.09) litres during basic endurance training v 55 (3) cycles/min and 2.98 (0.10) litres during the competitive period; p<0.05). Conclusions: This study does not provide significant evidence of lung function impairment in healthy Mediterranean athletes after one year of endurance training

Environment assisted degradation mechanisms in advanced light metals

The general goals of the research program are to characterize alloy behavior quantitatively and to develop predictive mechanisms for environmental failure modes. Successes in this regard will provide the basis for metallurgical optimization of alloy performance, for chemical control of aggressive environments, and for engineering life prediction with damage tolerance and long term reliability