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1500 questions
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Inflation, cause or result of monetary emission?

The argentine economist Fernanda Vallejos, while trying to protect the government because of the inflation, the following: Inflation is not the result but the cause of monetary emission. As there's inflation (because of other reasons not…
Diego Jancic
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Weakly monotone preferences with singleton indifference curves: do any of them admit a utility representation?

Inspired by this question. The original question was answered by Amit with some nice examples. I would like to know the generalized answer: Suppose we have a preference ordering $\succeq$, which is weakly monotone, thus for any basket of goods $x$,…
Giskard
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Does recycling lead to fewer jobs?

Say I buy a glass bottle, I can either put it in the landfill or recycle it. My understanding is, glass will breakdown into sand. (Not sure how well though, since we sometimes find glass from Roman times.) Alternatively we can recycle it. But I was…
zooby
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Alternative way of deriving OLS coefficients

In another question of mine, an answerer used the following derivation of OLS coefficient: We have a model: $$ Y = X_1 \beta + X_2 \beta_2 + Z \gamma + \varepsilon, $$ where $Z$ is unobserved. Then we have: $$\text{plim}\, \hat \beta_{1} = \beta_1…
Heisenberg
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3 answers

Why did the Swiss National Bank abandon its currency peg so suddenly?

There are many theories about why the Swiss National Bank (SNB) abandoned its currency peg a few days ago. My question is more specific: why did they make the change so sudden? Why not reduce the peg to 1.19 (Francs needed to buy one Euro) one…
zkurtz
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Generalization of the Heckscher-Ohlin Model

The Heckscher-Ohlin Model is normally presented for the case of 2 countries, 2 factors of production and 2 traded goods, leading to statements that, subject to free trade and various other assumptions: A country with a relative abundance of a…
Adam Bailey
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2 answers

Can Dynare solve general equilibrium (GE) models with non-convex adjustment costs?

I know that Dynare (which sits on top of Matlab) can solve many kinds of dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) and overlapping generations (OLG) models. I also know that Dynare can handle some sorts of adjustment costs. For example, I have…
BKay
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Finding demand function given a utility min(x,y) function

I am confused about a particular point regarding finding a demand function. All the problems in this practice set I am doing have involved applying the method of Lagrangian multipliers. But I am uncertain if it applies here for this problem. Problem…
Stan Shunpike
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9
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6 answers

Game Theory Book

I am looking for a book on game theory, but I am not looking for a textbook. What I am after is more of a narrative form book that still provides valuable insights about game theory that I can pick up for my night-time reading. I am in my first year…
Jordan
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5 answers

Lack of skilled IT workforce, but they do not raise wages

In my country, Portugal, many IT companies are always complaining in media regarding the lack of skilled IT workforce, but they do not raise wages. We have statistical data from the government that proves what I am saying. Companies are paying less…
daniel__
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Rothschild-Stiglitz working paper?

I recently rediscovered Rothschild and Stiglitz's classic paper, "Equilibrium in Competitive Insurance Markets". In footnote 7, they refer to an earlier version of their paper for details on the robustness of their results to their assumptions. Does…
Theoretical Economist
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2 answers

Whatever happened to efficiency wage theories?

Older macroeconomics texts give much space to efficiency wage explanations of how unemployment could coexist with wages in equilibrium higher than the reservation wage of workers. However, there seems to be very little current research on these…
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3 answers

Why is bargaining more common in poor countries?

In poor countries, one might bargain over even say a bottle of water. This is unthinkable in most rich countries. (And in countries that develop rapidly, one can actually notice the steady movement from bargaining to fixed prices.) The "obvious"…
user18
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4 answers

In the eyes of a normal citizen, what difference does it make if my country has debt or no debt?

I got curious about this because I happened to pass by a list of countries with zero debt. Country debt seems like a major thing, but for a non-economics major like me, I don't exactly understand the implications of a country having debt. More tax?…
Zaenille
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Existence of utility representation of a rational but discontinuous preference

This is related to Do discontinuous preferences imply no continuous utility function? I think the title of the above-linked question is phrased in such a way that obscures a subtly different but more interesting question which the OP also hinted at…
Herr K.
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