Papers by Robert Goldfarb
Studies in Economics and Finance, Feb 1, 1985
Many texts display circular indifference curves. The rationale for such curves typically requires... more Many texts display circular indifference curves. The rationale for such curves typically requires that goods become bads — that is, their marginal utilities become negative — over some range (e.g., Baumol [1], p. 199). In this note we develop what seems to be a far more general and intuitively appealing rationale for “approximately circular” indifference curves. This rationale suggests that the phenomenon may be far more widespread than previous analysis implies.
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Public Choice, 1986
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Journal of Development Economics, Jun 1, 1984
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Rivista Internazionale de Economia dei Trasporti, Feb 1, 1989
EFFECT OF USING COMPANY VS INDUSTRY EMPLOYMENT STATISTICS ON EMPLOYEES QUALIFYING FOR COMPENSATION
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Atlantic Economic Journal, Sep 1, 1981
... cases; the slope ofBD, Peo/teo, repre-sents income per unit of time spent treating dis-cretio... more ... cases; the slope ofBD, Peo/teo, repre-sents income per unit of time spent treating dis-cretionary cases in the office. These slopes do not have to be equal. As drawn in Figure I, the Figure ][ INCOME C po 0 WORK Page 3. FELDMAN, GOLDFARB, RAFFERTY AND GOLDFARB: ...
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Journal of Economic Education, Jul 1, 2013
Shortages, while rare, do appear in the United States. Under what circumstances might this happen... more Shortages, while rare, do appear in the United States. Under what circumstances might this happen? Which alleged shortages are “true” economic shortages? When do true shortages emerge in a market economy? What does this tell us about how market economies work? Six types or categories of “true” economic shortages and one category of alleged shortages are identified in this article. Examples include shortages of Christmas toys, flu vaccines, nurses, concert and sporting event tickets, airline seats, parking spaces, and blood supply. Do a few fundamental underlying causes link the six categories? Questions for class discussion are included throughout.
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Advances in health economics and health services research, Dec 2, 2006
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Journal of Labor Research, Sep 1, 1983
The Davis-Bacon Act requires labor on most federally financed construction projects to be paid a ... more The Davis-Bacon Act requires labor on most federally financed construction projects to be paid a minimum wage, often equal to the union wage. Since contractors are apt to employ higher quality labor at this higher wage, Davis-Bacon supporters argue that higher quality output will result. Contrary to this reasoning, our paper shows that a Davis-Bacon type rule need not improve
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Research in the history of economic thought and methodology, Sep 7, 2005
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Policy, Politics, & Nursing Practice, Aug 1, 2008
Widespread and continuing discussions of nursing shortages frequently involve divergent concepts ... more Widespread and continuing discussions of nursing shortages frequently involve divergent concepts of shortage that can have differing policy implications. This article explains the shortage concepts used by economists, hospital administrators, and government policy makers. It discusses measurement problems and suggests possible improvements. It then sets forth the divergent policy implications of competing shortage concepts. The article's aim is to promote greater clarity in analyses of nursing shortages and more fruitful conversations among participants who use different notions of shortages.
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Journal of Economic Methodology, Jun 1, 1998
... I economics Bryan L. Boulier and Robert S. Goldfarb ... While this line of argument seems to ... more ... I economics Bryan L. Boulier and Robert S. Goldfarb ... While this line of argument seems to have gone virtually unchallenged among most economists, there are serious observers who do not accept it. Alan Blinder (1991), for example, explicitly disagrees. ...
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Journal of Health Economics, 1999
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Journal of Economic Methodology, 2001
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Forum for Health Economics & Policy, Nov 19, 2008
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B E Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, May 16, 2007
Vaccination provides indirect benefits to the unvaccinated. Despite its important policy implicat... more Vaccination provides indirect benefits to the unvaccinated. Despite its important policy implications, there is little analytical or empirical work to quantify this externality, nor is it incorporated in a number of cost-benefit studies of vaccine programs. We use a standard epidemiological model to analyze how the magnitude of this externality varies with the number of vaccinations, vaccine efficacy, and disease infectiousness. We also provide empirical estimates using parameters for influenza and mumps epidemics. The pattern of the externality is complex and striking, unlike that suggested in standard treatments. The size of the externality is not necessarily monotonic in the number vaccinated, vaccine efficacy, nor disease infectiousness. Moreover, its magnitude can be remarkably large. In particular, the marginal externality of a vaccination can be greater than one case of illness prevented among the nonvaccinated, so its omission from policy analyses implies serious biases.
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Journal of Economic Methodology, Dec 1, 1995
... Their specific derived 'point estimate of the number of unrejected null hypotheses t... more ... Their specific derived 'point estimate of the number of unrejected null hypotheses that are true is. . .no greater than nine times the number of null hypotheses with reported marginal significance levels between 0.9 and 1 .O' (p. 1262). ...
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Public Choice, 1983
Our paper has considered possible justifications for compensation in the specific context of the ... more Our paper has considered possible justifications for compensation in the specific context of the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978. While the concept of severance pay for dislocations caused by deregulation is consistent with all of the pro-compensation rationales discussed in Section 4, specific severance pay schemes are generally consistent only with particular rationales. This suggests that some insight into the
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Journal of Labor Research, Dec 1, 1984
One of the original arguments in support of the Davis-Bacon Act was that local construction labor... more One of the original arguments in support of the Davis-Bacon Act was that local construction labor would be protected from wage-busting on federal projects by “ruthless non-local contractors” using low-wage, itinerant labor. A related, current claim is that Davis-Bacon prevents lower quality non-local firms from winning contracts by underbidding local labor; thus, Davis-Bacon helps to ensure the quality of construction. This paper first evaluates whether the use of itinerant non-local firmsnecessarily results in lower quality output. Using the “traveling” symphony orchestra as an analogy, the answer is clearly “no.” Second, if higher quality output may be produced by non-local firms, is this likely to happen in construction? Third, does a Davis-Bacon type of wage floor ensure that local projects will be built by local firms or crews?
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Economics and Philosophy, Apr 1, 1991
Since a paradigmatic approach is judged in part by the range of phenomena it can explain, neoclas... more Since a paradigmatic approach is judged in part by the range of phenomena it can explain, neoclassical microeconomists have no doubt gained assurance about the power of their paradigm by the invasion of economics into a number of related fields, what Hirschleifer (1985) has referred to as the “expanding domain of economics.” Moreover, even beyond these excursions into the provinces of other social sciences concerned with human behavior, economics has also recently expanded into the analysis of animal behavior (cf. Battalio, Kagel, and McDonald, 1985). This development not only adds more scientific prestige to the approach, but allows economists to use research techniques developed in more experimentally oriented disciplines.
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Papers by Robert Goldfarb