#1999-020A "Committing and Reneging: A Dynamic Model of Policy Regimes"
by Joseph G. Haubrich, and Joseph Ritter
September 1999

Actual policy decisions are made in real time and are not irrevocable. These observations are mundane, but most policy modeling has neglected them. More...

#1999-011A "Feeding the National Accounts"
by Joseph Ritter
August 1999

Modern market economies are probably the most complex institutions ever devised by human beings. In the United States, by far the most complex of these tracking systems is the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA). This article's objective is to survey the main data sources currently used in the NIPA. More...

PUBLISHED: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review, March/April 2000, 82(2), pp. 11-20

#1999-005A "Low-Powered Incentives"
by Joseph Ritter, and Lowell J. Taylor
May 1999

We study low-powered incentives in a model that captures important features of workplaces in which incentive-pay approaches are minimally relevant. Our motivation is that incentive pay, while not rare, is clearly far less common than are agency problems; many firms with agency problems nonetheless pay fixed compensation and offer continued employment to all but those workers judged "unsatisfactory" according to largely subjective criteria. More...

#1998-006A "Seniority-Based Layoffs as an Incentive Device"
by Joseph Ritter, and Lowell J. Taylor
May 1998

This paper provides a simple economic rationale for two elements that often appear-implicitly or explicitly-in firms' personnel policies. When firms reduce their labor input they often ( i ) lay off a few individuals rather than adjust work hours, and ( ii ) make retention decisions on the basis of seniority. More...

#1997-006A "Economic Models of Employee Motivation"
by Joseph Ritter, and Lowell J. Taylor
February 1997

Workers, being human beings, present employers with a range of tricky problems. Humans, unlike filing cabinets, can be crooked, subversive, surly, or indolent, even if they are paid on time. More...

PUBLISHED: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review, September/October 1997, 79(5)

#1997-005B "Valuable Jobs and Uncertainty"
by Joseph Ritter, and Lowell J. Taylor

Revised April 1998

Little attention has been given to the link between variation in a firm's circumstances and the resolution of agency problems that pervade the relationship between a firm and its employees. More...

#1995-015B "Dynamic Commitment and Incomplete Policy Rules"
by Joseph Ritter, and Joseph G. Haubrich

Revised June 1998

Considering the dynamics of commitment highlights, some neglected features of time inconsistency problems. We modify the standard rules-versus-discretion question in three ways: (1) A government that does not commit today retains the option to do so tomorrow, (2) the government's commitment capability is restricted to a class of simple rules, and (3) the government's ability to make irrevocable commitments is restricted. More...

FORTHCOMING: Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking

#1995-004B "Commitment as Investment Under Uncertainty"
by Joseph Ritter, and Joseph G. Haubrich
March 1995
Revised April 1996

Irreversible investment and the techniques associated with pricing real options have led to significant advances many areas. We broaden this range of applications, showing how the techniques can apply to many policy problems in finance, macroeconomics, and trade policy. More...

#1994-004A "The Transition From Barter to Fiat Money"
by Joseph Ritter


How did it become possible to exchange apparently valueless pieces of paper for goods? This paper provides an equilibrium account of the transition between barter and fiat money regimes. More...

PUBLISHED: American Economic Review, March 1995