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Many fans in the United States are increasingly distressed by the fact that spectator sports, one of their favorite recreational activities, are just another commercial enterprise. They attribute this state of affairs to the greed of professional athletes, a charge they often make without any understanding of the concept of economic rent, a major component of the salaries received by those who play professional sports. This note demonstrates the relevance of the principle of economic rent to the salaries paid professional athletes. The paper places the remuneration of professional athletes within the wider context of the entertainment industry and explains athletes' salaries from the standpoint of labor supply and demand and investment in human capital. It addresses the issues of monopoly and monopsony and the existence of quasi-rents in the short run and pure economic rent in the long run. The paper ends by noting the key role derived demand plays in determining the salaries of professional athletes. Ironically, the source of that derived demand is the fan, the individual so distressed by the commercial nature of professional sports.

Abstract. Hegemony theorists attribute the duration and severity of the Great Depression to the fact that, in 1933, the United States refused to take the place of Great Britain as world economic leader. This argument is based on the proposition that a major power must coordinate the international monetary and trading systems if is to obtain in those sectors. This thesis is reappraised by applying the theories of public goods, clubs, and public choice to the London Monetary and Economic Conference of 1933, an occasion when the United States declined the role of world economic hegemon.Dig deep tunnels, store grain everywhere, and never seek begemony.

Abstract. On February 27, 1991, the government of Iraq accepted United Nations Security Council Resolution 674, a measure requiring it to pay reparations to the victims of its aggression in the Gulf Crisis of 1990–1991. The economic problems and consequences that may result as Iraq faces the provisions of Resolution 674 are discussed. This latest example of international economic compensation is placed in the context of the transfer problem and the economic debate engendered by the experience of Germany in dealing with its reparations burden after World War I. Lessons gained from this historical example of reparations are then applied to the case of Iraq, one of the world's major petroleum producers, a country that must rely on oil exports to make its reparations payments.

SUMMARYThis paper is a study of inflation in Portugal during the years 1953‐1980, a period marked by political revolution and the start of the country's modern economic development. The analysis is conducted within the context of the monetarist‐structuralist debate and employs, as explanatory variables, changes in expected prices, money, permanent income, exchange rates, and a vector of structural factors. Ordinary least squares and first‐ and second‐order autoregressive models, estimated by means of BEACH and MCKINNON'S full maximum likelihood technique, are the empirical methods used to investigate the sources of this inflation. In addition to the usual hypotheses, the question of economies of scale in money‐holding and the general equilibrium notion of a direct and proportional relationship between changes in money and prices are tested. The empirical results demonstrate that, despite political upheaval and government intervention in the market, neoclassical theory provides a reliable explanation of inflation in Portugal during the period considered.

Apartheid and international monetary reform have received much attention in recent years yet littleof the discussion of these issues has linked them in any meaningful way. The call for changes in the international monetary system has been based upon an alleged insufficiency in international liquidity anda need for an adjustment mechanism for secular balance of payments disequilibria. Opposition to apartheid, South Africa's segregationist racial policy, has been based upon humanitarian concern for the condition of black Africans in that country.