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The article reviews the book "Trends and Cycles in the Commercial Paper Market," by Richard T. Selden.

The article presents a review of the book "Financial Markets and Corporate Finance: Selected Papers of Michael J. Brennan."

The article reviews the book "The Commercial Paper Market," by Nevins D. Baxter.

In focusing upon the band/crawl proposals, The Burgenstock Papers makes a serious and important contribution to discussions of changing the international monetary system. The only viable alternative to a widened band and crawl (assuming flexible rates will not be adopted) is probably to have fixed exchange rates within major currency areas and flexible rates between them. Under this proposal, the Common Market countries would probably have fixed exchange rates between themselves, but a floating rate versus the dollar. There might also be a pound-based group, a yen-based group, and so on. Each country could then decide for itself whether to float its rate, or to which currency group to tie its rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a review of the book "Value, Capital and Growth: Papers in Honour of Sir John Hicks," edited by J.N. Wolfe.

The article presents a review of the book "The Collected Scientific Papers of Paul A. Samuelson," vol. 3, edited by Robert C. Merton.

This collection of papers results from a conference on Research in Income and Wealth, under the auspices of the National Bureau of Economic Research, held at the University of Pennsylvania in 1967. The primary concern lies with the measurement and explanation of differences in the wealth and incomes of various entities. The definitions and procedures are unique and suggest the rather diverse framework that must accompany such an undertaking. The first two papers are devoted to the distribution of wealth, and the remaining four pertain for the most part to income. Comments are offered on each paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a review of the book "The Economics of Executive Compensation," by Kevin F. Hallock and Kevin J. Murphy.

The papers in this compendium are arranged under five topical headings: program appraisal and management, manpower and education, income maintenance, health, and housing and the "quality of man's environment." The last phrase is a synonym for air and water pollution. With that addendum, the topical headings accurately convey the scope of the two volumes. As they suggest, the scope is extremely wide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to its preface, this book is the outgrowth of a symposium concerning methodology in finance and investments held at Rutgers University in May 1971. It consists of eleven separate papers, varying in length from 16 to 53 pages, and covering a variety of topics grouped into five categories. A good introduction sets forth the main points of each paper. As indicated by the editor, the primary objective of the book is to contribute to the "knowledge, awareness, or understanding of" (1) methodological foundations common to finance, investments, and other fields of inquiry; (2) the essential nature of the postulates of normative behavior in finance and investments; and (3) the continuing "explosion of knowledge about the structure of the finance world." After commenting briefly on each paper, we consider the relationship between the book's purpose and its contents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews the book "Trade, Balance of Payments, and Growth, Papers in International Economics in Honor of Charles P. Kindleberger," edited by J.N. Bhagwati and R.W. Jones.

This book consists of the papers presented at a conference held in July, 1972, organized by Robert Aliber on behalf of the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business. It contains an introduction by Aliber, which is largely an explanation of the rationale behind the organization of the conference ("national interdependency and international consistency" in international monetary affairs), 16 formal papers, a summary of the discussion and some concluding observations by Harry Johnson. The topics covered are organized under five headings: Models of Monetary Interdependence; Investor Expectations and Monetary Interdependence; Euro-dollars and Euro-money; Monetary Independence and Sterilization; Monetary Interdependence and the International System. The book is a useful addition to the literature. Taken collectively, the papers provide us with a benchmark for evaluating the state of the art (unsatisfactory) and an enumeration of theoretical and empirical problems. With its broad coverage of topics and different levels of analytical rigor, it will prove helpful to a variety of students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Essays in International Economics contains eleven of Fleming's previously published papers, and two hitherto unpublished ones. Many of the papers will already be familiar to academic economists: several constitute classics in the field. The Essays are grouped into three categories: trade restrictions and welfare; international monetary reform; and balance of payments policy and the adjustment process. Despite the fact that the arrangement within each group is chronological, the three subjects also correspond closely to the chronological order in which various issues in international economics have emerged since World War II. Thus, the first three papers are concerned with ways in which welfare can be maximized when trade restrictions and exchange control must be accepted as givens. The first paper, "On Making the Best of Balance-of-Payments Restrictions," focusses upon ways in which one could approach optimality given that some currencies are "stronger" than others, and that quantitative restrictions must therefore result. As an early attempt to deal with a "second-best" problem, the paper is of considerable interest. The second paper--"The Optimal Tariff from an International Standpoint"--concerns the ways in which poor countries could use their monopoly power in trade to enhance international welfare if the world welfare function attaches greater weights to improvements in real income in poor countries than in rich. Despite the fact that the developing countries generally impose duties upon imports, in which their monopoly power is probably zero, rather than taxing exports where some monopoly power does exist, the result is of some theoretical importance. The final paper of the first section, published in 1956, focusses upon estimating the real income loss associated with trade restrictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This book contains a collection of papers presented at a Monash University Conference in September 1969. There was no unifying theme to the Conference, except for being in the field of international economics, broadly conceived. Therefore, the papers range over various aspects of international trade and finance. They include contributions in the area of trade theory (Corden, Grubel, Johnson, Laing, McDougan), various treatments of tariffs and preferences (Evans, Gruen and Corden, Lloyd), considerations of international capital movements and the international corporation (Johnson, Webb, Snape, Pitchford), and a paper on the international monetary system (Johnson). Methodologically, the contributions range from abstract theory to applied economics to consideration of current policy issues. Under the first category fall the paper by McDougall on non-traded goods in international trade; Pitchford on foreign investments and the national advantage in a dynamic context; Webb on international capital movement and the optimum taxation of capital flows. The second category includes among others the paper by Lloyd on the Australian preference scheme (subsequently extended in a follow-up paper in the Economic Records of March 1971), while under the third heading belongs the paper by Johnson on the current international monetary "crisis." These examples illustrate the diversity of topics covered in the book; diversity which defies a comprehensive review of its contents. The following discussion concentrates on the papers thought to be of interest to the readers of the Journal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reviews the book "Share Markets and Portfolio Theory: Readings and Australian Evidence," edited by Ray Ball, Philip Brown, Frank J. Finn and R.R. Officer.

The article reviews the book "Market Volatility," by Robert J. Shiller.

The article presents a review of the book "Efficiency in the Municipal Bond Market: The Use of Tax Exempt Financing for Private Purposes," edited by George G. Kaufman.

The article reviews the book "Public Finance, Planning and Economic Development: Essays in Honour of Ursula Hicks," edited by Winfred L. David.

This volume reports the proceedings of a conference sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston in September 1972. This is the ninth such conference since June 1969 and the fourth in the area of monetary policy. As the title indicates, this is the second conference on the problem of controlling monetary aggregates, accurately reflecting both the magnitude of the importance and the continuity of the interest of the subject. The other volumes in the series include financial structure, international finance, and state and local finance. On the whole, the conferences encompassed high class, well prepared papers presented by respected authorities in the respective areas. The volumes deserve space on every monetary analyst's bookshelf and should receive considerable reference use. It would be difficult to praise the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston too highly for this service they provide the public at large, the financial community, and the academic community, and of course to themselves and the rest of the Federal Reserve System in opening controversial subject areas to free debate. Of all the public information and research funds expended by the Federal Reserve System, these conferences and the publication of the proceedings must rank among the most worthwhile and those generating the highest returns. May this series have a long and healthy life! [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This attractively thin book contains 17 papers by 14 internationally known economists on the spectrum of problems involved in restoring and maintaining balance in international payments within the constraint of the Bretton Woods philosophy of fixed exchange rates. Comprehensive essays by Fellner, Machlup, and Triffin comprise Part I and serve as an introduction to the broad nature and complexities of payments problems and policies for dealing with them. At the same time, Part I establishes a framework against which specific aspects and technical problems of payments imbalance are examined in more detail in the 14 shorter "Papers on Special Issues" which make up Part II. According to Machlup, the underlying purpose of the symposium is to provide a set of basic criteria by which countries can assess their responsibilities for action with regards to balance-of-payments difficulties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This volume contains the proceedings of a Conference on Models of Income Deterruination held in February 1962 at Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The papers were prepared by economists and statisticians interested in the theory of income determination, its measurement, and in using income data to construct and test macroeconomic models. It is Volume 28 of the Studies in Income and Wealth by the Conference on Research in Income and Wealth of the National Bureau of Economic Research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Books reviewed: Stoll, Hans (ed.) Microstructure: The Organization of Trading and Short Term Price Behavior. Ziemba, William T. and Mulvey, John M. (eds.) Worldwide Asset and Liability Modeling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reviews the book "Essays in Public Economics, the Kiryat Anavim Papers," edited by Agnar Sandmo.

This book contains 44 papers, about two-thirds of which first appeared in print since the beginning of 1961. About half of the papers deal with policy questions. Six papers use graphical analysis, five use some form of mathematical analysis (other than notation), and five use some form of regression analysis. The objective of the collection is stated to be "to introduce undergraduates ... to the type of work which is done by macroeconomists." This reviewer will therefore consider the collection from a pedagogical point of view, rather than in terms of the merits of the papers, most of which are recognized as standard references. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reviews the book "Mathematical Methods in Investment and Finance," edited by G.P. Szego and Karl Shell.

The article reviews the book "Stabilization Policies in Interdependent Economies," edited by Emil Claassen and Pascal Salin.

Papers presented before a seminar on the international (multinational) corporation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the spring of 1969, later edited by Charles P. Kindleberger, are now available in The International Corporation. The book is divided into five main parts: the theory of the international corporation; finance and technology; law and politics; three industry studies; and three country studies. There are, in addition, an introduction by Kindleberger and a final paper (Part VI) by Raymond Vernon, "Future of the Multinational Enterprise." Robert Aliber's "A Theory of Direct Foreign Investment," "The Efficiency and Welfare Implications of the International Corporation" by Harry Johnson, and a paper "Multinational Corporations and International Oligopoly: The Non-American Challenge" by Stephen Hymer and Robert Rowthorn make up the first part. Aliber argues that the pattern of direct foreign investment can best be explained as a currency-area phenomenon, that market estimates of exchange risk are biased, and that this bias determines whether a country is likely to be a host or source country for foreign investment. Cross investments in the same industry are explained by historic changes in exchange risk. Aliber's thesis differs from other explanations of such investment which usually emphasize technological or organizational advantage, firm size, or market protection. In Johnson's view, for example, direct foreign investment--particularly recent investment by large American firms--is based on exploitation of technological monopoly. Johnson mentions terms-of-trade and terms-of-borrowing (i.e., first-best) arguments for intervention to restrict direct foreign investment, but concentrates on the more common second-best reasons. He concludes that the application of even second-best criteria is likely, for practical reasons, to have third-best welfare consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The book under review is a selection of readings in public expenditure analysis. Balbir Sahni has assembled what he regards as the "recent classics" in the literature on public spending. Following a brief introductory essay are eleven "chapters" consisting both of papers and excepts from books published since the early 1950's. Sahni divides his selection into two parts, the first consisting of readings on the normative aspects of public expenditure problems and the second of positive studies in expenditure analysis. The normative section includes (among other things) the first chapter from Musgrave's book describing his tripartite division of the fiscal authority, four Samuelson papers on the theory of public expenditure, and the important papers by Head ("Public Goods and Public Policy") and Tiebout ("A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures"). The major selections of positive studies are from Peacock's and Wiseman's book dealing with Wagner's Law and the displacement effect, a paper by Thorn ("The Evolution of Public Finances During Economic Development"), and excerpt from Pryor's volume, Public Expenditures in Communist and Capitalist Nations. Sahni concludes his collection with a selected bibliography of 247 works (listed alphabetically by the name of the author) on public expenditure analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a review of the book "Advances in Behavioral Finance," by Richard H. Thaler.

The article reviews the book "Japanese Capital Markets: Analysis and Characteristics of Equity, Debt, and Financial Futures Markets," edited by Edwin J. Elton and Martin J. Gruber.

The article reviews the book "Stock Market Anomalies," edited by Elroy Dimson.

This volume contains the papers presented at the conference on Optimum Currency Areas held in Madrid, on March 16-19, 1970. The book is divided into three parts. Part I (chapters 1-4) deals with the economics of fixed exchange rates; Part II (chapters 5-12), the main part of the volume, deals with the economics of common currencies; and finally Part III (chapters 13-17) deals with the economics of flexible exchange rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This book is an interesting collection of papers, covering a wide range of topics and inferences regarding the economic and social stimuli and consequences of mergers. For example, one conclusion is that while mergers may not affect overall industry concentration (White), neither do they bring about efficiency gains (Mueller). For those whose interests may lie in a less traditional analysis of mergers, Siegfried and Sweeny's paper touches upon just about every noneconomic aspect of mergers that one might wish to consider. Because of the diversity of topics included, each article shall be discussed individually under one of two general headings: motivations and effects. As with life in general, the original motivation may be quite different from the eventual effect of a merger. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theme of the conference, as stated in the title of the proceedings, is somewhat misleading in that the papers and comments presented cover a much broader array of issues than simply new sources of capital. The material presented ranges from proposals for new instruments that are documented with theoretical models, through presentations involving tabulations documenting current industry practices, to verbal descriptions of where the industry appears to be heading. The lengthier and more mathematically sophisticated contributions are, with one exception, authored by academicians. The shorter pieces, with one exception, are by industry-related participants. This last group includes many current and former employees of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This volume originated in a corporeal symposium from which a special issue of the Duke Law Journal eventually emerged and then, by the magic of low-cost printing techniques, became a hard-bound book. Such collections of disparate papers (and I write as one who has been frequently guilty of contributing to these nonbooks) have to contain at least a few superb papers to make them worth reading, much less buying. This collection does not meet the test, at least for readers concerned for financial economics and financial policy generally, although it may serve municipal bond market technicians reasonably well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a review of the book "Financial Crises: Institutions and Markets in a Fragile Environment," edited by Edward I. Altman and Arnold W. Sametz.

The volume represents a collection of papers and commentaries presented at a monetary conference held by the Graduate institute of International Studies, Fairleigh Dickinson University, at its Wroxton, U.K., campus, June 1973. The organizers of this conference managed to assemble a group of participants who ranged from U.S. congressmen, such as Representative Wright Patman (D-Texas), to respected academics from both the United States and the United Kingdom and assorted international bankers. The contributions clearly reflect this diversity, in terms of viewpoints as well as quality and depth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reviews the books "Issues in Banking and Monetary Analysis," edited by Giulio Pontecorvo, Robert P. Shay and Albert G. Hart, and "Money and Economic Activity: Readings in Money and Banking," third edition, edited by Lawrence S. Ritter.

The paper is obviously a rich lode for specialists in many of the functional fields, and Stigler shows the way with another paper, "Information in the Labor Market" (1962), that directly applies his search analysis to data on job offers to students coming out of the Graduate Business School of the University of Chicago. Somewhat surprisingly, he has not included his own explorations in financial markets, i.e., his Journal of Business article (1964) on the SEC Special Study and his subsequent exchange with Friend and Herman. (Perhaps it is just as well. That was not his finest hour.) But there is little doubt that the payload in finance would be a good one indeed. One thinks of whole strings of subjects that should yield up ore when worked with these tools--the role of security-market specialists, the markets of closely related products such as foreign exchange or debt instruments of different maturity, multiproduct markets such as are faced by commercial banks. And indeed the process has begun. But it has barely begun, and a widespread reading of this major article by Stigler would surely stir others to join the working party. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a book on economic development written by practitioners. It is the result of specific experiences encountered by a group of economists working for the Harvard Development Advisory Service in the process of making policy recommendations to various governments. The contributions to this volume deal with specific-country issues drawn from only four countries' Argentina, Colombia, Pakistan, and Liberia. The volume is divided into the following six parts: (1) planning, macro models, and development strategy; (2) stabilization and short-term policy; (3) fiscal policy; (4) agricultural development; (5) education, manpower, labor, and wages; and finally (6) evaluation. The bulk of the papers are included in the first two parts (seven papers), with the last four parts containing only one contribution each. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gramlich's paper attempts to isolate the economic effects of discretionary policy by weighting various components of the full-employment budget, using multipliers derived from a variety of well-known econometric models. The estimated effects of the full-employment budget in any one year varied by embarrassingly large amounts depending on which model was chosen, but when first differences of the impacts were calculated, the results of the different models were remarkably similar. Gramlich's paper is interesting but it sheds little light on the issues raised in the first part of the volume since the impact of government asset transactions is not considered. In the light of the recent work by Christ which illustrates the importance of the way in which income transactions of government are financed, this is an important weakness in Gramlich's approach.
In summary the conference was generally useful, but its area of concentration was determined largely by political concern over the concept of the budget deficit. This meant that many important issues were largely ignored and its title, "Budget Concepts for Economic Analysis," is somewhat misleading. The important issue of whether we should have a true capital budget was mentioned only briefly in the discussion period, and there was no discussion of ways to formulate budget concepts so that economists would be in a better position to analyze such questions as the effect of government either on particular industries, on the pattern of factor demands, or on the growth of full-employment GNP. The Budget Bureau's publication of Special Analyses, Budget of the United States, which accompanies the basic budget document each year, has been an invaluable improvement in this regard but there is still much to be done. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reviews the book "Issues in Defense Economics," edited by Ronald N. McKean.

Modern Development in Financial Management is a new book of readings, edited by a prominent teacher and researcher in the area of corporation finance. From the structure of the book it is apparent that it is intended mainly for MBA students with a finance concentration. It contains 33 articles, two of which were published in the 1950's, 11 in the 1960's and 20 from the years 1970–1976. The claim to present modern development is clearly justified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The book consists of a collection of nine essays dealing with various aspects and issues in selective credit policies; i.e., policies designed to alter the mix and/or ownership of financial assets and liabilities. This is the first volume, of what presumably will be a continuing series, to come out of an ongoing project investigating credit allocation techniques being conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. The objectives of the book, in part, mirror the objectives of the project, which "are (1) to record and evaluate what economists know about selective credit policies, (2) to identify gaps in our understanding of these policies, and (3) to move toward narrowing the gaps." (p. 1) The book is organized in three segments: an overview essay presented by the editors; survey articles dealing with a specific aspect of the existing literature on selective credit policies; and papers representing work done by economists at the Research Department of the Bank. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For readers interested in school finance reform this is a useful and stimulating book. It is a collection of 19 papers and conference discussion from a symposium sponsored by the Committee on Taxation, Resources and Economic Development (TRED) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in October, 1972. The papers are grouped in four sections; (1) Theoretical and General Considerations; (2) Statewide Approaches; (3) Legal Adjustments and Restrictions; and (4) Metropolitan Area and City Fiscal Environment. The three main threads are how to finance education, how to reform or adapt the property tax to the equalization of educational resources, and the possible role within that reform for land taxation. Although the major focus is on intrastate problems, one paper deals with Soviet education financing, one with less-developed nations, and one with state-federal relationships within the U.S. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This book is a collection of papers given at the 1968 symposium of the Tax Institute of America. The papers fall under four broad headings: Economic Aspects of Taxes on Compensation, How Taxes Affect Benefit Plans for Employees, How Taxes Affect Benefit Plans for Executives, and critiques of the 1965 Cabinet Committee Report on Public Policy and Private Pension Funds, the latter set of papers being devoted primarily to the desirability of vesting, funding, and reinsurance of pension funds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reviews the book "The Economics of Taxation," edited by Henry Aaron and Michael Boskin.

This is a collection of eight papers presented at two seminars on regulatory economics held at Rutgers University. While this book is not a text, it could serve as a supplement, particularly for a course that focuses on pricing policy and its implementation. In the introductory chapter Michael Crew and Paul Kleindorfer classify the papers into three categories, public utility regulation, applications of peak-load pricing, and peak-loads and regulation, and provide an introduction to the theory and implementation of peak-load pricing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This second volume of the National Bureau's studies of interest rates contains four new studies concerned with the structure of interest rates and four reprints (or adaptations) of previously published work. The reprinted papers include Cagan's well-known study of changes in the cyclical behavior of interest rates and a companion piece by Diller on the seasonal variation of interest rates. The two remaining previously published papers are Kessel's seminal study of "liquidity premiums" in the term structure and Diller's important essay which analyzes market expectations. Since these essays have already received considerable comment and discussion, I will concentrate on the new studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reviews the book "The Technology Factor in International Trade," edited by Raymond Vernon.