Download or read book WRONG written by Richard S. Grossman and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2013 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The industrialized world has long been rocked by economic crises, often caused by policy makers who are guided by ideology rather than cold, hard analysis. WRONG examines the worst economic policy blunders of the last 250 years, providing a valuable guide book for policy makers... and the citizens who elect them.
Download or read book Government Failure Versus Market Failure written by Clifford Winston and published by Brookings Institution Press and AEI. This book was released on 2006 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When should government intervene in market activity? When is it best to let market forces simply take their natural course? How does existing empirical evidence about government performance inform those decisions? Brookings economist Clifford Winston uses these questions to frame a frank empirical assessment of government economic intervention in Government Failure vs.
Download or read book Failure by Design written by Josh Bivens and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2011-02-15 with total page 121 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Failure by Design, the Economic Policy Institute’s Josh Bivens takes a step back from the acclaimed State of Working America series, building on its wealth of data to relate a compelling narrative of the U.S. economy’s struggle to emerge from the Great Recession of 2008. Bivens explains the causes and impact on working Americans of the most catastrophic economic policy failure since the 1920s. As outlined clearly here, economic growth since the late 1970s has been slow and inequitably distributed, largely as a result of poor policy choices. These choices only got worse in the 2000s, leading to an anemic economic expansion. What growth we did see in the economy was fueled by staggering increases in private-sector debt and a housing bubble that artificially inflated wealth by trillions of dollars. As had been predicted, the bursting of the housing bubble had disastrous consequences for the broader economy, spurring a financial crisis and a rise in joblessness that dwarfed those resulting from any recession since the Great Depression. The fallout from the Great Recession makes it near certain that there will be yet another lost decade of income growth for typical families, whose incomes had not been boosted by the previous decade’s sluggish and localized economic expansion. In its broad narrative of how the economy has failed to deliver for most Americans over much of the past three decades, Failure by Design also offers compelling graphic evidence on jobs, incomes, wages, and other measures of economic well-being most relevant to low- and middle-income workers. Josh Bivens tracks these trends carefully, giving a lesson in economic history that is readable yet rigorous in its analysis. Intended as both a stand-alone volume and a companion to the new State of Working America website that presents all of the data underlying this cogent analysis, Failure by Design will become required reading as a road map to the economic problems that confront working Americans.
Download or read book Explaining Economic Policy Failure written by Robert Charles Angel and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 1991 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Why Government Fails So Often written by Peter H. Schuck and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-08-25 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "From healthcare to workplace conduct, the federal government is taking on ever more responsibility for managing our lives. At the same time, Americans have never been more disaffected with Washington, seeing it as an intrusive, incompetent, wasteful giant. The most alarming consequence of ineffective policies, in addition to unrealized social goals, is the growing threat to the government's democratic legitimacy. Understanding why government fails so often--and how it might become more effective--is an urgent responsibility of citizenship. In this book, lawyer and political scientist Peter Schuck provides a wide range of examples and an enormous body of evidence to explain why so many domestic policies go awry--and how to right the foundering ship of state.Schuck argues that Washington's failures are due not to episodic problems or partisan bickering, but rather to deep structural flaws that undermine every administration, Democratic and Republican. These recurrent weaknesses include unrealistic goals, perverse incentives, poor and distorted information, systemic irrationality, rigidity and lack of credibility, a mediocre bureaucracy, powerful and inescapable markets, and the inherent limits of law. To counteract each of these problems, Schuck proposes numerous achievable reforms, from avoiding moral hazard in student loan, mortgage, and other subsidy programs, to empowering consumers of public services, simplifying programs and testing them for cost-effectiveness, and increasing the use of "big data." The book also examines successful policies--including the G.I. Bill, the Voting Rights Act, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and airline deregulation--to highlight the factors that made them work.An urgent call for reform, Why Government Fails So Often is essential reading for anyone curious about why government is in such disrepute and how it can do better"--
Download or read book Government Failure written by Gordon Tullock and published by Cato Institute. This book was released on 2002-05-01 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When market forces fail us, what are we to do? Who will step in to protect the public interest? The government, right? Wrong. The romantic view of bureaucrats coming to the rescue confuses the true relationship between economics and politics. Politicians often cite "market failure" as justification for meddling with the economy, but a group of leading scholars show the shortcomings of this view. In Government Failure, these scholars explain the school of study known as "public choice," which uses the tools of economics to understand and evaluate government activity. Gordon Tullock, one of the founders of public choice, explains how government "cures" often cause more harm than good. Tullock provides an engaging overview of public choice and discusses how interest groups seek favors from government at enormous costs to society. Displaying the steely realism that has marked public choice, Tullock shows the political world as it is, rather than as it should be. Gordon Brady scrutinizes American public policy, looking closely at international trade, efforts at regulating technology, and environmental policy. At every turn Brady points out the ways in which interest groups have manipulated the government to advance their own agendas. Arthur Seldon, a seminal scholar in public choice, provides a comparative perspective from Great Britain. He examines how government interventions in the British economy have led to inefficiency and warns about the political centralization promised by the European Community. Government Failure heralds a new approach to the study of politics and public policy. This book enlightens readers with the basic concepts of public choice in an unusually accessible way to show the folly of excessive faith in the state.
Download or read book Why Nations Fail written by Daron Acemoglu and published by Currency. This book was released on 2013-09-17 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries: Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine? Is it culture, the weather, geography? Perhaps ignorance of what the right policies are? Simply, no. None of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Otherwise, how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest growing countries in the world, while other African nations, such as Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, are mired in poverty and violence? Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or lack of it). Korea, to take just one of their fascinating examples, is a remarkably homogeneous nation, yet the people of North Korea are among the poorest on earth while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are among the richest. The south forged a society that created incentives, rewarded innovation, and allowed everyone to participate in economic opportunities. The economic success thus spurred was sustained because the government became accountable and responsive to citizens and the great mass of people. Sadly, the people of the north have endured decades of famine, political repression, and very different economic institutions—with no end in sight. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created these completely different institutional trajectories. Based on fifteen years of original research Acemoglu and Robinson marshall extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, medieval Venice, the Soviet Union, Latin America, England, Europe, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today, including: - China has built an authoritarian growth machine. Will it continue to grow at such high speed and overwhelm the West? - Are America’s best days behind it? Are we moving from a virtuous circle in which efforts by elites to aggrandize power are resisted to a vicious one that enriches and empowers a small minority? - What is the most effective way to help move billions of people from the rut of poverty to prosperity? More philanthropy from the wealthy nations of the West? Or learning the hard-won lessons of Acemoglu and Robinson’s breakthrough ideas on the interplay between inclusive political and economic institutions? Why Nations Fail will change the way you look at—and understand—the world.
Download or read book Failed written by Mark Weisbrot and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Failed argues that some of the most important economic developments of recent years, including prolonged economic failures and alternatives, are widely misunderstood. Topics include the Eurozone, growth in the developing world, Latin America's "second independence" in the 21st century, and the International Monetary Fund's policies and loss of influence.
Download or read book Busted Sanctions written by Bryan Early and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2015-02-11 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Powerful countries like the United States regularly employ economic sanctions as a tool for promoting their foreign policy interests. Yet this foreign policy tool has an uninspiring track record of success, with economic sanctions achieving their goals less than a third of the time they are imposed. The costs of these failed sanctions policies can be significant for the states that impose them, their targets, and the other countries they affect. Explaining economic sanctions' high failure rate therefore constitutes a vital endeavor for academics and policy-makers alike. Busted Sanctions seeks to provide this explanation, and reveals that the primary cause of this failure is third-party spoilers, or sanctions busters, who undercut sanctioning efforts by providing their targets with extensive foreign aid or sanctions-busting trade. In quantitatively and qualitatively analyzing over 60 years of U.S. economic sanctions, Bryan Early reveals that both types of third-party sanctions busters have played a major role in undermining U.S. economic sanctions. Surprisingly, his analysis also reveals that the United States' closest allies are often its sanctions' worst enemies. The book offers the first comprehensive explanation for why different types of sanctions busting occur and reveals the devastating effects it has on economic sanctions' chances of success.
Download or read book Failure to Adjust written by Edward Alden and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2017-09-15 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Updated edition with a new foreword on the Trump administration's trade policy* The vast benefits promised by the supporters of globalization, and by their own government, have never materialized for many Americans. In Failure to Adjust Edward Alden provides a compelling history of the last four decades of US economic and trade policies that have left too many Americans unable to adapt to or compete in the current global marketplace. He tells the story of what went wrong and how to correct the course. Originally published on the eve of the 2016 presidential election, Alden’s book captured the zeitgeist that would propel Donald J. Trump to the presidency. In a new introduction to the paperback edition, Alden addresses the economic challenges now facing the Trump administration, and warns that economic disruption will continue to be among the most pressing issues facing the United States. If the failure to adjust continues, Alden predicts, the political disruptions of the future will be larger still.
Download or read book Business as Usual written by Paul Mattick and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2011-05-15 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The recent global economic downturn has affected nearly everyone in every corner of the globe. Its vast reach and lingering effects have made it difficult to pinpoint its exact cause, and while some economists point to the risks inherent in the modern financial system, others blame long-term imbalances in the world economy. Into this debate steps Paul Mattick, who, in Business as Usual, explains the global economic downturn in relation to the development of the world economy since World War II, but also as a fundamental example of the cycle of crisis and recovery that has characterized capitalism since the early nineteenth century. Mattick explains that today’s recession is not the result of a singular financial event but instead is a manifestation of long-term processes within the world economy. Mattick argues that the economic downturn can best be understood within the context of business cycles, which are unavoidable in a free-market economy. He uses this explanation as a springboard for exploring the nature of our capitalist society and its prospects for the future. Although Business as Usual engages with many economic theories, both mainstream and left-wing, Mattick’s accessible writing opens the subject up in order for non-specialists to understand the current economic climate not as the effect of a financial crisis, but as a manifestation of a truth about the social and economic system in which we live. As a result the book is ideal for anyone who wants to gain a succinct and jargon-free understanding of recent economic events, and, just as important, the overall dynamics of the capitalist system itself.
Download or read book In the Wake of the Crisis written by Olivier Blanchard and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2014-08-29 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prominent economists reconsider the fundamentals of economic policy for a post-crisis world. In 2011, the International Monetary Fund invited prominent economists and economic policymakers to consider the brave new world of the post-crisis global economy. The result is a book that captures the state of macroeconomic thinking at a transformational moment. The crisis and the weak recovery that has followed raise fundamental questions concerning macroeconomics and economic policy. These top economists discuss future directions for monetary policy, fiscal policy, financial regulation, capital-account management, growth strategies, the international monetary system, and the economic models that should underpin thinking about critical policy choices. Contributors Olivier Blanchard, Ricardo Caballero, Charles Collyns, Arminio Fraga, Már Guðmundsson, Sri Mulyani Indrawati, Otmar Issing, Olivier Jeanne, Rakesh Mohan, Maurice Obstfeld, José Antonio Ocampo, Guillermo Ortiz, Y. V. Reddy, Dani Rodrik, David Romer, Paul Romer, Andrew Sheng, Hyun Song Shin, Parthasarathi Shome, Robert Solow, Michael Spence, Joseph Stiglitz, Adair Turner
Download or read book The Myth of Democratic Failure written by Donald A. Wittman and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Myth of Democratic Failure, Donald A. Wittman refutes one of the cornerstone beliefs of economics and political science: that economic markets are more efficient than the processes and institutions of democratic government.
Download or read book Political Economics written by Torsten Persson and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2002-01-25 with total page 564 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What determines the size and form of redistributive programs, the extent and type of public goods provision, the burden of taxation across alternative tax bases, the size of government deficits, and the stance of monetary policy during the course of business and electoral cycles? A large and rapidly growing literature in political economics attempts to answer these questions. But so far there is little consensus on the answers and disagreement on the appropriate mode of analysis. Combining the best of three separate traditions—the theory of macroeconomic policy, public choice, and rational choice in political science—Torsten Persson and Guido Tabellini suggest a unified approach to the field. As in modern macroeconomics, individual citizens behave rationally, their preferences over economic outcomes inducing preferences over policy. As in public choice, the delegation of policy decisions to elected representatives may give rise to agency problems between voters and politicians. And, as in rational choice, political institutions shape the procedures for setting policy and electing politicians. The authors outline a common method of analysis, establish several new results, and identify the main outstanding problems.
Download or read book The Plans That Failed written by André Steiner and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2013-08-01 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The establishment of the Communist social model in one part of Germany was a result of international postwar developments, of the Cold War waged by East and West, and of the resultant partition of Germany. As the author argues, the GDR’s ‘new’ society was deliberately conceived as a counter-model to the liberal and marketregulated system. Although the hopes connected with this alternative system turned out to be misplaced and the planned economy may be thoroughly discredited today, it is important to understand the context in which it developed and failed. This study, a bestseller in its German version, offers an in-depth exploration of the GDR economy’s starting conditions and the obstacles to growth it confronted during the consolidation phase. These factors, however, were not decisive in the GDR’s lack of growth compared to that of the Federal Republic. As this study convincingly shows, it was the economic model that led to failure.
Download or read book The Great Inflation written by Michael D. Bordo and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-06-28 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Controlling inflation is among the most important objectives of economic policy. By maintaining price stability, policy makers are able to reduce uncertainty, improve price-monitoring mechanisms, and facilitate more efficient planning and allocation of resources, thereby raising productivity. This volume focuses on understanding the causes of the Great Inflation of the 1970s and ’80s, which saw rising inflation in many nations, and which propelled interest rates across the developing world into the double digits. In the decades since, the immediate cause of the period’s rise in inflation has been the subject of considerable debate. Among the areas of contention are the role of monetary policy in driving inflation and the implications this had both for policy design and for evaluating the performance of those who set the policy. Here, contributors map monetary policy from the 1960s to the present, shedding light on the ways in which the lessons of the Great Inflation were absorbed and applied to today’s global and increasingly complex economic environment.
Download or read book Rediscovering Economic Policy as a Discipline written by Nicola Acocella and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-26 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A leading expert on economic policy makes the convincing case for the foundation, coordination and reach of government action through economic policy. Presenting justifications for government intervention in coping with market failures, Acocella applies the theory of economic policy to current global issues.