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Edward Tower, Professor Emeritus

Edward Tower

Professor Tower specializes in finance, computable general equilibrium modeling, macroeconomics, development economics, microeconomics, and managerial economics. He conducts a majority of his research within the study of trade and development, exploring a variety of variables from tariffs, quotas, and time zone arbitrage, to equities, mutual funds, and index mutual funds. Since he began publishing his work in 1965, he has contributed over 130 articles to leading academic journals and has had several books, chapters, and papers appear in print. Some of his more recent writings include, “School Choice: Money, Race, and Congressional Voting on Vouchers,” completed in collaboration with O. Gokcekus and J. Phillips; “Rational Pessimism: Predicting Equity Returns by Tobin’s q and Price/Earnings Ratio” with M. Harney; and “Predicting Equity Returns for 37 Countries: Tweaking the Gordon Formula” with K. Reinker. Much of his work pertaining to U.S. trade policy has been used to determine congressional voting on protectionist issues based on campaign contributions. His work on financial issues has also played an important role in determining the value of the U.S. stock market. His latest studies involved an investigation of congressional voting on importation of ethical drugs and predicting returns on both foreign and U.S. equity.

Contact Info:
Office Location:  228C Social Sciences Bldg, Box 90097, Durham, NC 27708
Office Phone:  (919) 660-1800
Email Address: send me a message
Web Page:  http://www.econ.duke.edu/Econ/Faculty/Users/etower.html

Education:

Ph.D. Harvard University1971
M.A. Harvard University1967
Post BaccalaureateBrown University1965
B.A. Harvard University1964
Specialties:

Financial Economics
International Economics and Finance
Development Economics
Research Interests: Trade and Development

Current projects: Voting on importation of Ethical Drugs., Predicting returns on foreign and US equities.

Professor Tower specializes in finance, computable general equilibrium modeling, macroeconomics, development economics, microeconomics, and managerial economics. He conducts a majority of his research within the study of trade and development, exploring a variety of variables from tariffs, quotas, and time zone arbitrage, to equities, mutual funds, and index mutual funds. Since he began publishing his work in 1965, he has contributed over 130 articles to leading academic journals and has had several books, chapters, and papers appear in print. Some of his more recent writings include, “School Choice: Money, Race, and Congressional Voting on Vouchers,” completed in collaboration with O. Gokcekus and J. Phillips; “Rational Pessimism: Predicting Equity Returns by Tobin’s q and Price/Earnings Ratio” with M. Harney; and “Predicting Equity Returns for 37 Countries: Tweaking the Gordon Formula” with K. Reinker. Much of his work pertaining to U.S. trade policy has been used to determine congressional voting on protectionist issues based on campaign contributions. His work on financial issues has also played an important role in determining the value of the U.S. stock market. His latest studies involved an investigation of congressional voting on importation of ethical drugs and predicting returns on both foreign and U.S. equity.

Areas of Interest:

international trade
economic development
finance
equities
mutual funds

Keywords:

tariffs • quotas • equities • mutual funds • index mutual funds • time zone arbitrage

Duties:

Editor of the Duke Journal of Economics
Curriculum Vitae  Bio
Current Ph.D. Students   (Former Students)

    Representative Publications   (More Publications)   (search)

    1. E. Tower, Are GMO’s Predictions Prescient? Using them to predict Vanguard’s Mutual Fund Returns (October, 2010) [papers.cfm], [doi]
    2. Tower, E, GMO versus Vanguard: Assessing the Performance of Comparable Funds (October, 2010) [papers.cfm]
    3. Tower, E, Strategic Asset Allocation in Practice: Using Vanguard Funds to Clone GMO’s Benchmark‐Free Allocation Fund (October, Submitted, 2010) [papers.cfm]
    4. Tower, E; Gilbert, J, A golden jubilee note on Graaff's optimum tariff structures, History of Political Economy, vol. 32 no. 3 (Fall, 2000), pp. 421-436, Duke University Press [doi]  [abs]
    5. Conway, P; Csaplar, W; Tower, E, "How to Encourage Exports Without a Budgetary Cost: Comment on Wang and Tsai", Revista Internzaionale de Science Economiche e Commercialli (International Review of Economics and Business", vol. 47 no. 4 (December, 2000), pp. 701-704  [abs]
    6. Gilbert, J; Tower, E, Protectionism, labor mobility, and immiserizing growth in developing economics, Economics Letters, vol. 75 no. 1 (March, 2002), pp. 135-140, Elsevier BV, ISSN 0165-1765 [doi]  [abs]
    7. Gibbs, R; Gokcekus, O; Tower, E, "Is Talk Cheap? Buying Congressional Testimony with Campaign Contributions", Journal of Policy Reform, vol. 5 no. 3 (December, 2002), pp. 127-132, Blackwell [html]  [abs]
    8. Cvijanovic, V; Mikic, M; Tower, E, "Evaluating Croatian Equities", Zagreb Journal of Economics, vol. 7 no. 10 (2003), pp. 73-88 [html]  [abs]
    9. Harney, M; Tower, E, "Rational Pessimism: Predicting Equity Returns by Tobin's q and Price/Earnings Ratios", The Journal of Investing, vol. 12 no. 2 (Fall, 2003), pp. 58-69  [abs]
    10. Kaempfer, WH; Tower, E; Willett, TD, "The Employment Maximizing Import Quota Under Domestic Monopoly", Journal of International Logistics and Trade, vol. 1 no. 1 (2003), pp. 22 [pdf]  [abs]
    11. Gokcekus, O; Phillips, JJ; Tower, E, "School Choice: Money, Race and Congressional Voting on Vouchers", Public Choice, vol. 119 no. 1 (2004), pp. 20  [abs]
    12. Reinker, KS; Tower, E, "Predicting Equity Returns for 37 Countries: Tweeking the Gordon Formula", Journal of Investing, vol. 13 no. 2 (Summer, 2003), pp. 21 pp.  [abs]
    13. Reinker, KS; Tower, E, "Index Fundamentalism Revisited", Journal of Portfolio Management, vol. 30 no. 4 (Summer, 2003), pp. 31, ISSN 0095-4918  [abs]
    14. Gokcekus, O; Tower, E, "An Efficiency Enhancing Minimum Wage", Journal of Policy Reform, vol. 7 no. 2 (Spring, 2003), pp. 22pp. [html]  [abs]
    15. William H. Kaempfer, Edward Tower and Thomas D. Willett, "Trade Protectionism", in The Encyclopedia of Public Choice, edited by Charles K. Rowley and Friedrich Schneider (October, 2003), pp. 550-576, Kluwer Academic Publishers [pdf]  [abs]
    16. Gretchen Phillips and E. Tower, "Labor PAC Campaign Contributions and NAFTA Legislators: Rhetoric or Retribution?", in Empirical Methods In International Trade: Essays in Honor of Mordechai E. Kreinin, edited by Michael Plummer (2004 forthcoming), Edward Elgar [pdf]  [abs]
    17. Omer Gokcekus, Justin Knowles and E. Tower, "Sweetening the Pot: How American Sugar Buys Protection", in The Political Economy of Trade, Aid and Foreign Investment Policies, edited by Devashish Mitra and Arvind Panagariiya (2004 forthcoming), Elsevier [html]  [abs]
    Selected Other

    1. Member Editorial Board, 2003, International Logistics and Trade    
    2. Member of Editorial Board, 2003, Eastern Africa Economic Review    
    3. Fulbright Senior Specialists Grant to teach at The University of Zagreb, 2003, Zagreb, Croatia    
    4. Member Editorial Board, January 1, 2002 - December 31, 2004, International Review of Economics and Business (Rivista Internazionale di Scienze Economiche e Commerciali)    
    5. Member Editorial Board, January 1, 2001 - December 31, 2004, Journal of Policy Reform    
    6. Member Editorial Board, January 1, 1992 - December 31, 2004, Review of International Economics    
    7. Member Editorial Board, January 1, 1989 - December 31, 2004, North American Journal of Economics and Finance    


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