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Division of labor, in research as well as in teaching, has produced, in economics as elsewhere, an indefinite number of specialities that are usually described as "applied fields." … These fields may accumulate "private" stocks of facts and methods that are of little or no use outside their boundaries. Beyond this, however, they have repeatedly developed accumulations of facts and conceptual schemata that should be recorded as contributions to general economic analysis, even though the appointed wardens of the latter have sometimes been slow to welcome them.—J. A. Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis, pp. 22 and 24

Robert Ekelund is Professor of Economics at Texas A&M University. Robert Hebert is Associate Professor of Economics at Auburn University.

The Confederate Congress passed draconian trade legislation in February 1864 to regulate the blockade running business in contrast to their free trade agenda. This legislation created higher prices and deadweight costs except in areas under Union control. We examine the series of votes and proposed amendments relating to the passage of this legislation and find that representatives were more likely to vote for trade regulations if their districts would be largely unaffected by the legislation, such as those districts under Union occupation. This private interest explanation provides a heretofore unexplored historical example of public choice theory under extreme conditions. Adapted from the source document.

SummaryThis paper suggests that, while medieval cathedrals served many purposes and, indeed, were some of the greatest technical achievements of their time, they served a rational economic purpose as well. Protestant entry into the market for Christian religion finally materialized in the early sixteenth century. The Roman Catholic Church did not make a 'mistake' in failing to forestall entry. We argue that the Church made a conscious rational effort to do so by supplying excess capacity and particular forms of capital in medieval cathedrals. While the attempt to forestall entry was ultimately unsuccessful, the extent of cathedral building helps explain why some areas of Europe remained Catholic and alternative forms of Christianity took hold in other locales.

AbstractThere are a number of important problems in contemporary museum finance, and this article identifies yet another possible difficulty. An aggregate statistical measure of museum attendance is calculated in this research and the attendance measure is shown to be countercyclical in nature. When set against federal and other allocations to museums, which are clearly pro‐cyclical in nature, an attendance "disease" may be at least tentatively identified. Efficiency criteria, of course, require that costs are covered in real time. We find, however, that, despite the likelihood that museum attendance is income‐elastic and a normal good, attendance varies countercyclically with the business cycle. We suggest that one possible explanation for this phenomenon is that a positive substitution effect on demand outweighs the income effect on demand for museum attendance over the cycle. From a policymaking perspective, these results call for a longer range planning horizon, that is, one that includes the full business cycle rather than just the financial year, as is the current U.S. government practice.

Data from a 1984 Dept of Housing & Urban Development study & the 1990 US Census are used to examine whether homelessness is a housing problem per se, along with other issues relating to homelessness. The central conclusion is that homelessness does not appear to be a national housing problem. Also, given untoward incentives among actual & potential homeless populations, policies addressing homelessness should be directed at other instruments of change, eg, mental health funding & expenditures to treat substance abuse. 3 Tables, 16 References. Adapted from the source document.