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This paper suggests that unemployment is favorable to monopoly rights. Monopoly rights tied to work practices and use of more productive technologies blocking the use of superior technologies result in a low Total Factor Productivity (TFP) and thus low per worker income. Given a high unemployment rate as a signal, households and monopolies recognize that it is difficult to find new jobs. This gives the monopolies extra incentive to protect their vested interests by lobbying government officials to set high barriers to potential entrants with superior technologies. Consequently, inferior technologies have to be continually adopted. In an analysis of 49 countries, three regularities emerge. When other key variables are controlled, the initial unemployment rate is negatively correlated with the subsequent TFP levels, relative real per worker income levels, and real per capita income growth rates.

While the classical Greco-Roman tradition is not ordinarily thought of
as associated with radical individualism, many of the central concerns of
such radical individualists as Frédéric Bastiat, Herbert
Spencer, Benjamin Tucker, Ludwig von Mises, F. A. Hayek, and Ayn
Rand—including their views on human sociality, spontaneous order,
and the relation between self-interest and non-instrumental concern for
others—are shown to be inheritances from and developments of
Platonic, Aristotelian, Epicurean, and Stoic ideas. Hence those working in
the classical tradition have reason to explore the radical individualist
tradition and vice versa.

AbstractAll psychological and psychophysiological traits vary, often widely, about their stable set-point values, due to transitory environmental influences. Because it is this stable set-point that embodies the genetically determined component of the trait, twin and family data based on one-time trait measurements must underestimate true trait heritability. The means of multiple measurements, taken months or years apart, then correlated within pairs of monozygotic twins, would yield an accurate estimate of the broad heritability of the set-point value, but such data are rare and expensive. Given just two measurements sufficiently far apart, the cross-twin cross-time correlation (RCT), divided by the retest or within-twin cross-time correlation (RWT), provides a valid estimate of set-point heritability. This article examines data from young and middle-aged twins who were tested twice, 3 or more years apart, on heart rate and blood pressure, personality traits, self-rating items, occupational and recreational interests, as well as on Wechsler Intelligence Scales. In every case, the disattenuatedRCTrevealed substantially higher heritability than indicated by correlations based on single measurements.

This paper considers a range of issues affecting Japan's contemporary economic well-being. Japan has continued toward sustained, full-employment growth, though its path has been idiosyncratic and its pace has been erratic. GDP growth in 2006 was a respectable 2.2 percent, driven by business fixed investment and exports. Private consumption has failed to support demand, which reflects very low wage increases. The combination of economic expansion with mild deflation is the big idiosyncrasy of Japan's economic performance. The decoupling of growth and deflation is explained primarily by the ongoing structural transformation of the labor market. Slow growth in wage income and consumption imply that inflationary pressures will not emerge in the near future, despite economic growth. The likelihood that wage stagnation will persist and consumption's share of GDP will also continue to decline presents inadequate aggregate demand as a major constraint on growth and Japan's most important macroeconomic policy issue. Corporate performance continues to improve, but faces new restructuring challenges that involve divestitures, mergers, and acquisitions. Activist shareholders are playing an increasingly important yet controversial role in evolving Japanese companies. Export growth, propelled by a weak yen, has continued to be a major source of aggregate demand and corporate profits. Recent appreciation of the yen, as a result of the global credit crunch and financial turbulence, is a major concern only if it persists. Japan's trade has shifted away from the United States to Asia. East Asian economic cooperation is increasingly promoted, though the main impetus is political, not economic. Obstacles are currently too great for significant bilateral or regional PTAs, which is not a bad thing. I remain fundamentally optimistic about Japan's ability to solve its basic problems.