The Empirical Institutions-Growth Literature: Is Something Amiss at the Top?

The initial publication of the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World index prompted an explosion of empirical research on the institutions-growth relationship. To date, little of this research has appeared in the top economics journals. Subsequently, a number of empirical growth studies using alternative sources of data on institutions have appeared in top journals. This paper explores the two tracks of empirical research on the institutions-growth relationship—one track that recognizes all the relevant literature, and one that seems wanting in that respect.

The Empirical Instituions-Growth Literature: Is Something Amiss at the Top?

The initial publication of the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World index prompted an explosion of empirical research on the institutions-growth relationship. To date, little of this research has appeared in the top economics journals. Subsequently, a number of empirical growth studies using alternative sources of data on institutions have appeared in top journals. This paper explores the two tracks of empirical research on the institutions-growth relationship—one track that recognizes all the relevant literature, and one that seems wanting in that respect.

Regulation and the Macroeconomy

We introduce a new measure of the extent of federal regulation in the U.S. and use it to investigate the relationship between federal regulation and macroeconomic performance. We find that regulation has statistically and economically significant effects on aggregate output and the factors that produce it–total factor productivity (TFP), physical capital, and labor. Regulation has caused substantial reductions in the growth rates of both output and TFP and has had effects on the trends in capital and labor that vary over time in both sign and magnitude. Regulation also affects deviations about the trends in output and its factors of production, and the effects differ across dependent variables. Regulation changes the way output is produced by changing the mix of inputs. Changes in regulation and marginal tax rates also offer a straightforward explanation for the productivity slowdown of the 1970s.

Solar cell radiation flight experiment Quarterly progress report, 2 Dec. 1968 - 14 Mar. 1969

Design and test data of solar cells selected for flight on ATS-E for radiation effect

Macroeconomic Volatility and Economic Freedom: A Cross-Country Analysis

This paper examines the empirical relationship between business cycle volatility and economic freedom across countries. In a diverse sample of 85 countries, the results suggest a significantly negative relationship between volatility and a broad measure of freedom—even after controlling for other determinants of cross-country volatility and using an instrumental variables procedure to account for the likely endogeneity of economic freedom. Among the underlying areas of the freedom index, all but the size of government component also have a significantly negative relationship with volatility. Size of government is found to have a significantly positive relationship with volatility. Measures of changes in freedom and the volatility of freedom are found to be statistically insignificant, suggesting that freedom is not among the shocks that cause business cycles. Rather, freedom appears to allow economies to better adjust to those shocks that drive business cycles. Key Words: business cycles, volatility, institutions, economic freedom

Regulation, Investment, and Growth Across Countries

This paper uses cross-country regulation data to examine the relationship between government regulation, investment, and long-run growth in a large sample of countries. The empirical results suggest that (1) highly regulated economies tend to have high rates of public investment; (2) regulation has a negative impact on private investment; (3) regulation has a negative impact on growth rates; and (4) volatility in the regulatory regime is negatively related to growth. Conclusions (1) and (4) hold even when measures of economic freedom are included in the model. Interesting implications with respect to policy toward regulatory reform are suggested.

Experimentally determined flutter from two- and three-bladed model bearingless rotors in hover

A series of experiments was performed on a 1.8-m-diam model rotor in hover for the principal purpose of investigating the lead-lag stability of isolated bearingless rotors. Incidental to those tests, at least three types of pitch-flap flutter were encountered. Type 1 flutter occurred approximately at the second flap-mode frequency on both two-and three-bladed rotors for both small and large pitch angles and appeared to be a classic pitch-flap flutter. Type 2 flutter showed mostly torsional motion and was seen on both two- and three-bladed rotors. Type 3 flutter was a regressing flap flutter that occurred for only the three-bladed rotor configurations and appears to be a wake excited flutter. Although flutter occurred on a number of different configurations, no rotor parameters were identified that were clearly stabilizing or destabilizing