Vol. XIV, Spring 2002

By Duke Economics in Uncategorized on August 2, 2002.

This volume is the fourteenth annual publication of the Duke Journal of Economics. The Journal is a showcase for outstanding contributions made each year to the discipline of economics by Duke undergraduates.

We dedicate this issue to Professor Vladimir Treml. Professor Treml joined the Duke faculty in 1967 and retired in 1999, but he continues to teach and research in the department. The range of Professor Treml’s research interests include input-output techniques, analysis of the “shadow” economy, the study of Soviet and Russian economic statistics, and economics of alcohol abuse and alcoholism. He advised President Reagan and has testified at a number of congressional hearings. We are especially grateful to him for inspiring a Duke Mafia of Russian specialists, and grateful to a number of his protégés and to Roy Weintraub for sharing their stories of him and Emma, in this volume.

We congratulate the authors of the papers presented in this issue. Many of these papers are undergraduate honors theses. We are particularly pleased that a revised version of Peter Fishman’s essay will be published in the American Economist. In addition to the research presented here, two undergraduates wrote book reviews; both have been scheduled for publication in scholarly journals. We are delighted that their critical skills are being appreciated by the profession.

Patra Chakshuvej, Review of Peter Nolan’s China and the Global Economy, Palgrave, 2001, forthcoming in Kyklos.

Parema Damrithamanij, Review of David Sheff’s China Dawn: Story of a Technology and Business Revolution, New York, Harper Collins, 2002, forthcoming in Asian Pacific Business Review.

Lori Leachman, Omer Gokcekus and I got our starts as economics researchers coauthoring papers with our professors. In turn, we feel privileged to have worked with several Duke undergraduates this year in coauthoring papers that appear on the Duke Economics Working Papers Web Site.

Ryan Gibbs, Omer Gokcekus and Ed Tower, “Is Talk Cheap? Buying Congressional Testimony With Campaign Contributions.”

Mathew Harney and Ed Tower, “Rational Pessimism: Predicting Equity Returns by Tobin’s q and Price/Earnings Ratios.”

Lori Leachman, Vinay Kumar, Scott Orleck, “Explaining Variations in Private Equity: A Panel Approach.”

Joshua J. Phillips, Omer Gokcekus and Ed Tower, “School Choice: Money, Race and Congressional Voting Behavior.”

Kenneth S. Reinker and Ed Tower, “Predicting Equity Returns for 37 Countries: Tweaking the Gordon Formula.”

The Journal would like to thank donors to the Havrilesky Fund and Allen Starling Johnson, Jr. Endowment Fund as well as members of the staff of the Duke University Economics Department, especially Priscilla Lane. As in previous issues, in her role as Managing Editor she designed the layout, was instrumental in developing the structure of the Journal and worked with all the Journal’s authors to polish their contributions.

Ed Tower, Faculty Advisor the the Journal