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President Trump imposed tariffs in 2017 on several of China’s exports, notably steel. Many papers opposed these tariffs by using a common, invalid argument: rather than arguing these tariffs reduced U.S. welfare, they argue U.S. consumers and businesses pay the tariffs, a different, rhetorical issue. Their main evidence of harm is increases in imported goods’ after-tariff U.S. prices, especially relative to other goods’ U.S. prices. In a standard, small general equilibrium model (two countries, two goods, two factors), this price evidence is wholly ambiguous—it is even consistent with the view that Trump’s tariff was optimal, increasing U.S. welfare. Even sophisticated papers are similarly ambiguous. All fail because they neglect how government uses tariff revenue. Relying on fallacious arguments makes the free-trade position look weak and encourages protectionism.

Court packing greatly threatens democracy. This paper examines, compares and draws conclusions from two attempts: The PiS government is near to packing Polish courts; President Roosevelt tried but failed to pack the U.S. Supreme Court in 1937. In most democracies a head of government with a legislative majority and strong party control can pack courts, giving complete control. The United States escaped; Roosevelt lacked complete party control. Poland is unlucky; PiS is strongly controlled. Peaceful domestic protest is necessary, but Poland’s hope is from EU-level institutional pressure, supported by major democracies, to reverse packing and prevent further seizure of power.

In a four-factor asset-pricing model estimated on daily data, Fed intervention significantly affects betas of surprises in the market return, expected inflation rate, yield curve, and corporate-bond risk premium. Fed foreign-currency sales cause economically and statistically significant increases in the systematic risk premium in appreciation and thus in the dollar's expected appreciation rate, the direction the Fed desires, and consistent with the signaling but not the portfolio balance channel. Intervention's effects on actual appreciation are less reliable; they depend on unpredictable risk-factor realizations. Even successful intervention to strengthen the dollar may be costly; by increasing the dollar's systematic risk, intervention reduces the attractiveness of U.S. relative to foreign investments. Further, uncertainty about future Fed interventions may induce resource misallocation: ceteris paribus, investors find it harder to estimate risk-adjusted discount rates and forecast the home-currency value of cash flows. JEL classifications: F31; G12; G15 Keywords: Foreign-exchange intervention; Asset pricing models; Foreign-exchange market efficiency; Portfolio balance channel; Signaling channel

Substantial evidence sustains the belief that real exchange rates do not possess unit roots but instead demonstrate mean reversion. Longer time horizons enhance the performance of the approximated forecast models in relation to the standard driftless random walks. Longer estimation durations especially enhance performance in relation to the benchmark. The forecasting power in simple statistical model appears authentic, however, the models resolve only a modest part of the uncertainty concerning the revolution of real exchange rates.

The stationarity of real exchange rates over the recent flexible exchange rate period is an issue that has long bedeviled researchers in international finance. Using a constrained multivariate framework, this paper provides the strongest evidence yet that real exchange rates were mean-reverting over the 1973-93 period. We also investigate shifts in long-run real exchange rates, which may be important for the purpose of forecasting. Out-of-sample forecasting shows that the random walk model is outperformed by a mean-stationary model, especially at long horizons. In addition, there are substantial forecasting benefits from using a multivariate approach. (JEL C22, F21). Copyright [C] 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd

Milton Friedman's theory of the business cycle implies two empirical regularities tested for here. One regularity is that business cycles are asymmetric: The size of a contraction affects the size of the following expansion, but not vice versa. The second regularity is that a supply-side ceiling to aggregate output limits the size of expansions. Friedman's correlation methods yield only very weak support for the asymmetry hypothesis when applied to real GNP data of eight OECD countries. A time series model with a ceiling component fits the data well for a majority of the countries., I. INTRODUCTION Milton Friedman |1969; 1993~ discusses two empirical business cycle regularities he finds in U.S. data and conjectures that they may exist in other countries' data. First, Friedman argues [...]

An examination of sovereign defaults over the long term, from 1294 to 2008, shows that serial defaults are far rarer than the much-ballyhooed experience of the 1980s suggests. The only mass default in Europe since 1294 took place in the early nineteenth century during the Napoleonic Wars. The majority of the serial defaults date from after 1975, primarily in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and were heavily concentrated in the 1980s. These multiple defaults, like some earlier default waves in Latin America, reflected the experiences of newer nation states and were also linked to the inherent vulnerability of periphery countries to events in well-established, major financial centers. This was in sharp contrast to the earlier defaults in Europe and appears largely to be an aberration when viewed against the backdrop of the overall historical record. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In cross‐section studies, if the dependent variable is I(0) but the regressor is I(1), the true slope must be zero in the resulting “unbalanced regression.” A spuriously significant relationship may be found in large cross‐sections, however, if the integrated regressor is related to a stationary variable that enters the DGP but is omitted from the regression. The solution is to search for the related stationary variable, in some cases the first difference of the integrated regressor, in other cases, a categorical variable that can take on limited number of values which depend on the integrated variable. We present an extensive survey, new developments, and applications particularly in finance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction. Standard precautions are disease transmission prevention strategies recommended by both the World Health Organization (WHO) and by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Emergency medical services (EMS) personnel are expected to utilize standard precautions. Methods. This was a prospective observational study of the use of standard precautions by EMS providers arriving at a large urban emergency department (ED). Research assistants (RAs) observed EMS crews throughout their arrival and delivery of patients and recorded data related to the use of gloves, hand hygiene, and equipment disinfection. Results. A total of 423 EMS deliveries were observed, allowing for observation of 899 EMS providers. Only 512 (56.9%) EMS providers arrived wearing gloves. Hand washing was observed in 250 (27.8%) of providers. Reusable equipment disinfection was noted in only 31.6% of opportunities. The most commonly disinfected item was the stretcher (55%). Conclusion. EMS provider compliance with standard precautions and equipment disinfection recommendations is suboptimal. Strategies must be developed to improve EMS provider compliance with internationally recognized infection control guidelines. Key words: Emergency medical services, hand washing, hygiene, disinfection, disease prevention [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines power issues for the ADF and four break models (Perron, 1989; Zivot and Andrews, 1992) when the DGP corresponds to one of the break models. Choosing to test an incorrect break model can, but need not, greatly reduce the probability of rejecting the null. Break points that are relatively early in the sample period have substantial effects of increasing power. For modest shifts in time trends, simply including a time trend without shift in the model preserves power, but not for large time-trend shifts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Quantitative estimates show that India's nuclear tests caused important economic damage to India and its neighbors, Pakistan and China. Pakistan's tests caused further economic damage to all three countries. In response to India's tests, India's stock market fell by 7.26 percent, Pakistan's by 10.59 percent and China's by 2.70 percent. In response to Pakistan's tests, India's stock market fell by another 5.57 percent, Pakistan's by 16.82 percent and China's by 3.93 percent. Overall, the two countries' tests caused India's stock market to fall by 12.83 percent, Pakistan's by 27.41 percent and China's by 6.63 percent. Some argue that going nuclear increased India and Pakistan's national security and their international political standing. In the financial markets' opinion, these tests caused major reductions in both countries' economic security, and harmed China's economic security. The tests had no important effects on the Group of Ten countries' stock markets; thus, the tests' economic effects seem for the moment of be confined to southern Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper makes some extensions in the analysis of cartels and examines the affect on cartel pricing that ocean mining places on potential cartels in copper and nickel. Using the highest projected costs but only average yields from deep sea mining, it is determined that such mining represents a significant threat to OPEC type organizations in seabed minerals. The Law of the Sea negotiations take on added significance if viewed in this light. In a more general context the potential for cartelization when joint production exists is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides an example of a short-term technical trading strategy, based on past price movements, that produces statistically significant risk-adjusted profits at levels of transaction costs surely available to floor traders and professional money managers but not to investors paying even the lowest discount commercial rates. A short-term technical strategy can be made to work by those who pay relatively low but feasible transaction costs. The strategy uses a naive filter rule and quite small buy and sell triggers, with two main innovations--a method for selecting and updating a trading list, and a statistical test both for implementing the approach and judging performance. The data and the cost considerations do not make a strong case one way or the other as to whether this system can be made to work. The analysis of cost and volume assumes an investor employing no more than $3 million, implying this system could not by itself form the basis for most institutional investors' behavior.

International traders frequently use forward exchange transactions to hedge their cash flows in foreign currencies. A key issue is whether the forward rates are efficiently priced. There is evidence of time-varying risk premia in forward exchange rates. Are these risk premia systematic or unsystematic? This article uses a market model to explain risk, implying that the risk premium in the forward rate varies pari passu with the beta of the return to speculative forward positions. Assuming the unobserved risk premium is proportional to the forward premium allows testing the predicted relations; the data reject the joint hypotheses of the model and systematic risk. In terms of a simple factor model explaining the covariation of the forward premium, the risk premium, and the expected percentage rate of change of the spot exchange rate, the assumption that the forward premium and the risk premium are proportional can be relaxed without changing the empirical results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BSTRACT The authors show that estimates of risk premia on the market based on capital asset pricing models or arbitrage pricing theories can only be estimates of the ex post or sample risk premium on the market and cannot be interpreted as better estimates of the ex ante premium than those provided by sample averages of data. The ex ante premium drops out of the generating function for the returns used in the second-pass regressions. Although previous estimates of nonmarket premia have failed to take appropriate account of the population mean, that mean can in fact be estimated and appropriate adjustments made. Various approaches to estimating the ex ante risk premium and the population mean are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]