Re: Consumer Reports on Deregulation

2002-06-13 Thread Alex Tabarrok

Bill notes that prior to deregulation "In flight meals were more
substantial and more frequent. Ticket lines were shorter for coach
passengers. Major airline employees were more polite. There were lots of
give always (decks of cards, airline pins, etc.) Flight attendants with
time on their hands would strike up conversations with passengers. I
don't know that anyone has tried to quantify this..."

I bet there is something in the literature but if not quantifying
quality changes would be a nice project for a bright student.  First
place that I would look is passengers per airplane, i.e. seat room.

Alex
-- 
Dr. Alexander Tabarrok
Vice President and Director of Research
The Independent Institute
100 Swan Way
Oakland, CA, 94621-1428
Tel. 510-632-1366, FAX: 510-568-6040
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]




RE: Consumer Reports on Deregulation

2002-06-13 Thread William Dickens

Huh? Why would the _nature_ of quality competition be affected by deregulation? I 
suspect that it is true that competition was on the basis of both quality of service 
and attractiveness of flight attendants back in the 60s and 70s, but it was the 
women's movement, the Civil Rights act (particularly its application to age 
discrimination) and the flight attendants' union that changed this. Not deregulation. 

But there is a lot more to quality competition than flight attendants. In flight meals 
were more substantial and more frequent. Ticket lines were shorter for coach 
passengers. Major airline employees were more polite. There were lots of give always 
(decks of cards, airline pins, etc.) Flight attendants with time on their hands would 
strike up conversations with passengers. I don't know that anyone has tried to 
quantify this, but I don't know anyone who flew much before deregulation who doesn't 
think that the quality of service with the major airlines declined before and after 
deregulation. Given that deregulation seems to have caused fairs to drop in the major 
markets this is exactly what an economist would expect. - - Bill 

William T. Dickens
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20036
Phone: (202) 797-6113
FAX: (202) 797-6181
E-MAIL: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
AOL IM: wtdickens

>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 06/12/02 09:45PM >>>
On Bill's pint about quality competition.  I've heard that during the 
days of regulated air travel, airlines apparently competed on the beauty 
of the stewardesses.  I've been told by numerous sourcces (but have no 
real evidence) that some business magazines would rate the quality of 
the stewardesses in each airline.

If you favor hiring people based on their ability to serve coffee and 
tea instead of their looks, you might favor deregulation.

mitch mitchell

- Original Message -
From: "William Dickens" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Monday, June 10, 2002 5:08 pm
Subject: RE: Consumer Reports on Deregulation

> >Also relevant is quality and availability of service. Previously 
> prices>may have been cheap/falling but the range of offering, customer
> >treatment or availability may have constrained enjoyment of the 
> service>to a sub optimal level. Deregulation could/should change 
> this. (I think
> >it has in my limited experience)
> 
> Exactly the opposite of what happened in the formerly regulated 
> markets I'm familiar with. With prices fixed at a level that gave 
> most good companies very good rates of return they competed by 
> increasing quality. Quality has declined most noticeably in air 
> travel and the brokerage industry, but arguably in trucking and 
> banking as well. 
> 
> >I'm also not sure to what extent the prices charged were also 
> controlled>by governments as a macroeconomic tool to reduce 
> measures of inflation?
> >Any thoughts?  
> 
> Since the regulatory agencies tended to be captured by the 
> regulated industry (or at least sympathetic) prices tended to be 
> too high (thus the price declines) rather than too low. 
> 
> As someone else said, the counterfactual is everything. CR is 
> comparing the price declines during the 50s, 60s and early 70s 
> with the price declines in the late 70s, and 80s. Productivity 
> growth was notably faster in the earlier period than the later 
> period. Would prices have declined as much in the 80s in trucking 
> airlines, and phone service if there hadn't been deregulation? 
> From the studies I've seen I seriously doubt it. 
> 
> Of course not everybody's prices decline. Regulation did tend to 
> set prices too low for many low volume markets. In those places 
> prices have skyrocketed. I suspect that some of this is just price 
> rising to meet marginal cost, but because these are also markets 
> with substantial fixed costs (maintaining terminals, ticket agents 
> etc.) there is probably also some element of natural monopoly 
> pushing prices in these markets up above long-run marginal cost. 
> 
> I would guess that there are three factors that account for CR's 
> anguish about deregulation: 1) Their sense of fairness is offended 
> by the big price increases experienced in difficult to serve 
> markets, 2) Coming from the upper middle class as they do, they 
> put more value on quality and are less concerned about price than 
> the marginal air traveler/bank customer/brokerage customer so they 
> experience the change from high q high p to low q low p less 
> favorably than the new people attracted to the market by the 
> change, and 3) deregulating a monopoly may cause an increase in 
> price and to some extent that is what deregulation did (perhaps 
> most notably in the cable industry,

RE: Consumer Reports on Deregulation

2002-06-13 Thread Arthur G. Woolf


In the recent PBS series "Commanding Heights" Alfred Kahn pointed out that
when he took over as head of the CAB, the largest division within the
agency was the enforcement division, making sure that prices were no too
low.  He also said the agency was measuring the size of sandwiches to make
sure they weren't too big.





On Wed, 12 Jun 2002 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> On Bill's pint about quality competition.  I've heard that during the
> days of regulated air travel, airlines apparently competed on the beauty
> of the stewardesses.  I've been told by numerous sourcces (but have no
> real evidence) that some business magazines would rate the quality of
> the stewardesses in each airline.
>
> If you favor hiring people based on their ability to serve coffee and
> tea instead of their looks, you might favor deregulation.
>
> mitch mitchell
>
> - Original Message -
> From: "William Dickens" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Date: Monday, June 10, 2002 5:08 pm
> Subject: RE: Consumer Reports on Deregulation
>
> > >Also relevant is quality and availability of service. Previously
> > prices>may have been cheap/falling but the range of offering, customer
> > >treatment or availability may have constrained enjoyment of the
> > service>to a sub optimal level. Deregulation could/should change
> > this. (I think
> > >it has in my limited experience)
> >
> > Exactly the opposite of what happened in the formerly regulated
> > markets I'm familiar with. With prices fixed at a level that gave
> > most good companies very good rates of return they competed by
> > increasing quality. Quality has declined most noticeably in air
> > travel and the brokerage industry, but arguably in trucking and
> > banking as well.
> >
> > >I'm also not sure to what extent the prices charged were also
> > controlled>by governments as a macroeconomic tool to reduce
> > measures of inflation?
> > >Any thoughts?
> >
> > Since the regulatory agencies tended to be captured by the
> > regulated industry (or at least sympathetic) prices tended to be
> > too high (thus the price declines) rather than too low.
> >
> > As someone else said, the counterfactual is everything. CR is
> > comparing the price declines during the 50s, 60s and early 70s
> > with the price declines in the late 70s, and 80s. Productivity
> > growth was notably faster in the earlier period than the later
> > period. Would prices have declined as much in the 80s in trucking
> > airlines, and phone service if there hadn't been deregulation?
> > From the studies I've seen I seriously doubt it.
> >
> > Of course not everybody's prices decline. Regulation did tend to
> > set prices too low for many low volume markets. In those places
> > prices have skyrocketed. I suspect that some of this is just price
> > rising to meet marginal cost, but because these are also markets
> > with substantial fixed costs (maintaining terminals, ticket agents
> > etc.) there is probably also some element of natural monopoly
> > pushing prices in these markets up above long-run marginal cost.
> >
> > I would guess that there are three factors that account for CR's
> > anguish about deregulation: 1) Their sense of fairness is offended
> > by the big price increases experienced in difficult to serve
> > markets, 2) Coming from the upper middle class as they do, they
> > put more value on quality and are less concerned about price than
> > the marginal air traveler/bank customer/brokerage customer so they
> > experience the change from high q high p to low q low p less
> > favorably than the new people attracted to the market by the
> > change, and 3) deregulating a monopoly may cause an increase in
> > price and to some extent that is what deregulation did (perhaps
> > most notably in the cable industry, small air markets, and certain
> > types of phone service).
> >
> > With respect to 3) don't think I'm not aware of the competition
> > that cable faces from satellite or how contestable air markets
> > are. Imperfect competition and limit pricing still leave plenty of
> > room for monopolistic distortion. I don't think that _the_
> > definitive study on the costs and benefits of deregulation has
> > been done and I very much doubt that CR's study is it. After all,
> > CR used to  (still does?) insist that economists have to be wrong
> > about the predictability of capital markets because there are
> > numerous mutual funds that have had 5 or more years of ROR above
> &

Re: Consumer Reports on Deregulation

2002-06-12 Thread Anton Sherwood

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> . . . I've heard that during the days of regulated air travel,
> airlines apparently competed on the beauty of the stewardesses. . . .
> If you favor hiring people based on their ability to serve coffee
> and tea instead of their looks, you might favor deregulation.

Why should the opening of competition in pricing &c cause a shift from
one nonessential (eye candy) to another (coffee service)?  Because more
families started flying?

-- 
Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/




RE: Consumer Reports on Deregulation

2002-06-12 Thread dmitche4

On Bill's pint about quality competition.  I've heard that during the 
days of regulated air travel, airlines apparently competed on the beauty 
of the stewardesses.  I've been told by numerous sourcces (but have no 
real evidence) that some business magazines would rate the quality of 
the stewardesses in each airline.

If you favor hiring people based on their ability to serve coffee and 
tea instead of their looks, you might favor deregulation.

mitch mitchell

- Original Message -
From: "William Dickens" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Monday, June 10, 2002 5:08 pm
Subject: RE: Consumer Reports on Deregulation

> >Also relevant is quality and availability of service. Previously 
> prices>may have been cheap/falling but the range of offering, customer
> >treatment or availability may have constrained enjoyment of the 
> service>to a sub optimal level. Deregulation could/should change 
> this. (I think
> >it has in my limited experience)
> 
> Exactly the opposite of what happened in the formerly regulated 
> markets I'm familiar with. With prices fixed at a level that gave 
> most good companies very good rates of return they competed by 
> increasing quality. Quality has declined most noticeably in air 
> travel and the brokerage industry, but arguably in trucking and 
> banking as well. 
> 
> >I'm also not sure to what extent the prices charged were also 
> controlled>by governments as a macroeconomic tool to reduce 
> measures of inflation?
> >Any thoughts?  
> 
> Since the regulatory agencies tended to be captured by the 
> regulated industry (or at least sympathetic) prices tended to be 
> too high (thus the price declines) rather than too low. 
> 
> As someone else said, the counterfactual is everything. CR is 
> comparing the price declines during the 50s, 60s and early 70s 
> with the price declines in the late 70s, and 80s. Productivity 
> growth was notably faster in the earlier period than the later 
> period. Would prices have declined as much in the 80s in trucking 
> airlines, and phone service if there hadn't been deregulation? 
> From the studies I've seen I seriously doubt it. 
> 
> Of course not everybody's prices decline. Regulation did tend to 
> set prices too low for many low volume markets. In those places 
> prices have skyrocketed. I suspect that some of this is just price 
> rising to meet marginal cost, but because these are also markets 
> with substantial fixed costs (maintaining terminals, ticket agents 
> etc.) there is probably also some element of natural monopoly 
> pushing prices in these markets up above long-run marginal cost. 
> 
> I would guess that there are three factors that account for CR's 
> anguish about deregulation: 1) Their sense of fairness is offended 
> by the big price increases experienced in difficult to serve 
> markets, 2) Coming from the upper middle class as they do, they 
> put more value on quality and are less concerned about price than 
> the marginal air traveler/bank customer/brokerage customer so they 
> experience the change from high q high p to low q low p less 
> favorably than the new people attracted to the market by the 
> change, and 3) deregulating a monopoly may cause an increase in 
> price and to some extent that is what deregulation did (perhaps 
> most notably in the cable industry, small air markets, and certain 
> types of phone service).  
> 
> With respect to 3) don't think I'm not aware of the competition 
> that cable faces from satellite or how contestable air markets 
> are. Imperfect competition and limit pricing still leave plenty of 
> room for monopolistic distortion. I don't think that _the_ 
> definitive study on the costs and benefits of deregulation has 
> been done and I very much doubt that CR's study is it. After all, 
> CR used to  (still does?) insist that economists have to be wrong 
> about the predictability of capital markets because there are 
> numerous mutual funds that have had 5 or more years of ROR above 
> the market average - - without asking how many would be expected 
> on the basis of chance alone. Thus they used to endorse mutual 
> funds with exceptional records which, of course, tend to be the 
> ones with the riskiest strategies (and by the studies I've seen 
> only infinitesimally better expected returns). Sigh...
> - - Bill Dickens
> 
> 
> 
> William T. Dickens
> The Brookings Institution
> 1775 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
> Washington, DC 20036
> Phone: (202) 797-6113
> FAX: (202) 797-6181
> E-MAIL: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> AOL IM: wtdickens
> 
> 
> 




RE: Consumer Reports on Deregulation

2002-06-11 Thread Burns, Erik

p.s. it's on the web now...
http://www.consumerreports.org/main/detailv2.jsp?CONTENT%3C%3Ecnt_id=157017&;
FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=18151&bmUID=1023794495677

or at tinyurl.com:

http://tinyurl.com/ctr

(tinyurl is a brilliant service that changes those bulky URLs into
manageable - indeed, tiny - ones. downsizing at its best).

FWIW, i find this statement ...

"The marketplace has become more adversarial toward consumers. Absence of
strict rules has inspired aggressive tactics, which have led competitors to
respond in kind. Sellers have gained disproportionate power over buyers
through widespread use of hidden charges, fine-print loopholes,
ever-changing prices, and unauthorized switching of service."

...the most thought-provoking - it argues that, in a competitive market,
companies will gang up on consumers. which seems prima facie inane, given
the presence of competition gives consumers the power to a) switch and b)
complain in public and c) sue. (the example given of the
free-checking-for-life chap seems to scream out for a lawsuit; perhaps he
doesn't have his original 1985 contract, but surely SOMEONE has THEIRS ...
you'd think the "Class Action" light would be flashing somewhere...)

the conclusion seems to be that deregulation breeds a new
anticompetitiveness, collusion on the part of companies to screw their
customers. it seems more likely that the first sentence, if truncated, is
true: the marketplace has become more adversarial. both sides get to compete
in it - producers and consumers - and that, on the whole, strengthens the
marketplace itself. nothing wrong, from the consumer's point of view, with
higher prices, as long as services or products are commensurately better
too.

thinking the above through, it's actually rather amazing that the prices in
the CR graphs continue to fall (mostly) all the way through last year. as
others have noted already, there's little comparison between a telephone
bill in 1975 and one in 2000, in terms of the services you're getting - or
can get - for your money.

etb



Re: Consumer Reports on Deregulation

2002-06-10 Thread Wayne Leighton

A few suggestions follow.

for deregulation across several industries: 
Robert Crandall and Jerry Ellig, Economic Deregulation and Customer Choice (1996), 
Fairfax, VA: Center for Market Processes, George Mason University.  This article has 
many useful references.

for airline deregulation:
Steven Morrison and Cliff Winston, The Economic Effects of Airline Deregulation (1986) 
Washington, DC:  Brookings Institution.

for railroad deregulation:
General Accounting Office, Railroad Regulation:  Economic and Financial Impacts of the 
Staggers Rail Act of 1990, Report RCED-90-80 (1990).

Cliff Winston, et al., The Economic Effects of Surface Freight Deregulation (1990), 
Washington, DC:  Brookings Institution.

for cable deregulation (and reregulation):
Tom Hazlett, "Prices and Outputs Under Cable TV Reregulation, J. Reg. Econ. 12 (1997).

Tom Hazlett and Matthew Spitzer, Public Policy Toward Cable Television, Cambridge: MIT 
Press (1997).







RE: Consumer Reports on Deregulation

2002-06-10 Thread William Dickens

>Also relevant is quality and availability of service. Previously prices
>may have been cheap/falling but the range of offering, customer
>treatment or availability may have constrained enjoyment of the service
>to a sub optimal level. Deregulation could/should change this. (I think
>it has in my limited experience)

Exactly the opposite of what happened in the formerly regulated markets I'm familiar 
with. With prices fixed at a level that gave most good companies very good rates of 
return they competed by increasing quality. Quality has declined most noticeably in 
air travel and the brokerage industry, but arguably in trucking and banking as well. 

>I'm also not sure to what extent the prices charged were also controlled
>by governments as a macroeconomic tool to reduce measures of inflation?
>Any thoughts?  

Since the regulatory agencies tended to be captured by the regulated industry (or at 
least sympathetic) prices tended to be too high (thus the price declines) rather than 
too low. 

As someone else said, the counterfactual is everything. CR is comparing the price 
declines during the 50s, 60s and early 70s with the price declines in the late 70s, 
and 80s. Productivity growth was notably faster in the earlier period than the later 
period. Would prices have declined as much in the 80s in trucking airlines, and phone 
service if there hadn't been deregulation? From the studies I've seen I seriously 
doubt it. 

Of course not everybody's prices decline. Regulation did tend to set prices too low 
for many low volume markets. In those places prices have skyrocketed. I suspect that 
some of this is just price rising to meet marginal cost, but because these are also 
markets with substantial fixed costs (maintaining terminals, ticket agents etc.) there 
is probably also some element of natural monopoly pushing prices in these markets up 
above long-run marginal cost. 

I would guess that there are three factors that account for CR's anguish about 
deregulation: 1) Their sense of fairness is offended by the big price increases 
experienced in difficult to serve markets, 2) Coming from the upper middle class as 
they do, they put more value on quality and are less concerned about price than the 
marginal air traveler/bank customer/brokerage customer so they experience the change 
from high q high p to low q low p less favorably than the new people attracted to the 
market by the change, and 3) deregulating a monopoly may cause an increase in price 
and to some extent that is what deregulation did (perhaps most notably in the cable 
industry, small air markets, and certain types of phone service).  

With respect to 3) don't think I'm not aware of the competition that cable faces from 
satellite or how contestable air markets are. Imperfect competition and limit pricing 
still leave plenty of room for monopolistic distortion. I don't think that _the_ 
definitive study on the costs and benefits of deregulation has been done and I very 
much doubt that CR's study is it. After all, CR used to  (still does?) insist that 
economists have to be wrong about the predictability of capital markets because there 
are numerous mutual funds that have had 5 or more years of ROR above the market 
average - - without asking how many would be expected on the basis of chance alone. 
Thus they used to endorse mutual funds with exceptional records which, of course, tend 
to be the ones with the riskiest strategies (and by the studies I've seen only 
infinitesimally better expected returns). Sigh...
- - Bill Dickens



William T. Dickens
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20036
Phone: (202) 797-6113
FAX: (202) 797-6181
E-MAIL: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
AOL IM: wtdickens





Re: Consumer Reports on Deregulation

2002-06-10 Thread Arthur G. Woolf

I remember reading somewhere, probably a Brookings study, that airline
productivity grew in the 1960s as a result of the switch from propeller
planes to jets.  Presumably prices fell for the same reason.  But after
jets were diffused throughout the industry, technological change could no
longer be counted on for productivity improvements or price declines.

Also, the counterfactuals are important.  No one (other than economists)
could explain why Southwest charged so much less for trips between city
pairs in Texas and California than  other airlines charged for trips of
the same distance in interstate commerce.  Steven Breyer (now Justice)
does a nice job of explaining this in his book Regulation and its Reform.
Breyer was chief counsel of Ted Kennedy's committee that helped set the
stage for deregulation.


As to cable TV, I believe that if you adjust for the number of channels
subscribers get, the real cost/channel has fallen.


There are probably other stories for the other industries that CU claims
have not benefited consumers.


Art Woolf




On Mon, 10 Jun 2002, Robin Hanson wrote:

> The July 2002 issue of Consumer Reports (not yet on their website) has an
> article on p.30 on "Deregulation" with a summary "Why consumers suffer most
> in a free market - and what you can do about it."  Their strongest argument
> is a graph on p.30 on titled "Prices: A long-term decline.   Consumer
> prices often fell after deregulation.  But inflation-adjusted prices were
> falling for decades before, typically at a faster rate."  The chart shows
> prices for airlines, local telephone, long distance, cable TV, and
> electricity from 1950 to 2000, which are roughly supportive of their claim.
>
> Is there a rebuttal to this somewhere?
>
>
> Robin Hanson  [EMAIL PROTECTED]  http://hanson.gmu.edu
> Asst. Prof. Economics, George Mason University
> MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-
> 703-993-2326  FAX: 703-993-2323
>




Art Woolf   Phone: (802) 656-4711
Vermont Council on Economic Education
219 Kalkin Hall
University of Vermont   email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Burlington, VT  05405   website:  www.bsad.uvm.edu/vcee




RE: Consumer Reports on Deregulation

2002-06-10 Thread david mitchinson

Also relevant is quality and availability of service. Previously prices
may have been cheap/falling but the range of offering, customer
treatment or availability may have constrained enjoyment of the service
to a sub optimal level. Deregulation could/should change this. (I think
it has in my limited experience)

I'm also not sure to what extent the prices charged were also controlled
by governments as a macroeconomic tool to reduce measures of inflation?
Any thoughts?  

David Mitchinson
+447956256281


-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf
Of Robin Hanson
Sent: 10 June 2002 17:11
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Consumer Reports on Deregulation

The July 2002 issue of Consumer Reports (not yet on their website) has
an
article on p.30 on "Deregulation" with a summary "Why consumers suffer
most
in a free market - and what you can do about it."  Their strongest
argument
is a graph on p.30 on titled "Prices: A long-term decline.   Consumer
prices often fell after deregulation.  But inflation-adjusted prices
were
falling for decades before, typically at a faster rate."  The chart
shows
prices for airlines, local telephone, long distance, cable TV, and
electricity from 1950 to 2000, which are roughly supportive of their
claim.

Is there a rebuttal to this somewhere?


Robin Hanson  [EMAIL PROTECTED]  http://hanson.gmu.edu
Asst. Prof. Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-
703-993-2326  FAX: 703-993-2323





Re: Consumer Reports on Deregulation

2002-06-10 Thread Bryan Etzel

Do they define their use of "free market" and "deregulation?"
Has the deregulation talked about resulted in a freemarket?

Bryan


>From: Robin Hanson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Subject: Consumer Reports on Deregulation
>Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 12:11:06 -0400
>
>The July 2002 issue of Consumer Reports (not yet on their website) has an
>article on p.30 on "Deregulation" with a summary "Why consumers suffer most
>in a free market - and what you can do about it."  Their strongest argument
>is a graph on p.30 on titled "Prices: A long-term decline.   Consumer
>prices often fell after deregulation.  But inflation-adjusted prices were
>falling for decades before, typically at a faster rate."  The chart shows
>prices for airlines, local telephone, long distance, cable TV, and
>electricity from 1950 to 2000, which are roughly supportive of their claim.
>
>Is there a rebuttal to this somewhere?
>
>
>Robin Hanson  [EMAIL PROTECTED]  http://hanson.gmu.edu
>Asst. Prof. Economics, George Mason University
>MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-
>703-993-2326  FAX: 703-993-2323


_
Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com




Consumer Reports on Deregulation

2002-06-10 Thread Robin Hanson

The July 2002 issue of Consumer Reports (not yet on their website) has an
article on p.30 on "Deregulation" with a summary "Why consumers suffer most
in a free market - and what you can do about it."  Their strongest argument
is a graph on p.30 on titled "Prices: A long-term decline.   Consumer
prices often fell after deregulation.  But inflation-adjusted prices were
falling for decades before, typically at a faster rate."  The chart shows
prices for airlines, local telephone, long distance, cable TV, and
electricity from 1950 to 2000, which are roughly supportive of their claim.

Is there a rebuttal to this somewhere?


Robin Hanson  [EMAIL PROTECTED]  http://hanson.gmu.edu
Asst. Prof. Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-
703-993-2326  FAX: 703-993-2323