According to conventional wisdom, government may intervene when private markets fail to provide goods and services that society values. This view has led to the passage of much legislation and the creation of a host of agencies that have attempted, by exquisitely detailed regulations, to compel legislatively defined behavior in a broad range of activities affecting society as a whole—health care, housing, pollution abatement, transportation, to name only a few. Far from achieving the goals of the legislators and regulators, these efforts have been largely ineffective; worse, they have spawned endless litigation and countless administrative proceedings as the individuals and firms on who the regulations fall seek to avoid, or at least soften, their impact. The result has been long delays in determining whether government programs work at all, thwarting of agreed-upon societal aims, and deep skepticism about the power of government to make any difference. Strangely enough in a nation that since its inception has valued both the means and the ends of the private market system, the United States has rarely tried to harness private interests to public goals. Whenever private markets fail to produce some desired good or service (or fail to deter undesirable activity), the remedies proposed have hardly ever involved creating a system of incentives similar to those of the market place so as to make private choice consonant with public virtue. In this revision of the Godkin Lectures presented at Harvard University in November and December 1976, Charles L. Schultze examines the sources of this paradox. He outlines a plan for government intervention that would turn away from the direct "command and control" regulating techniques of the past and rely instead on market-like incentives to encourage people indirectly to take publicly desired actions.
When policymakers are in need of economic advice, professional economists are never far away. Policymakers, journalists, and citizens all rely on experts to explain various economic developments and policy proposals. While it is fortunate that experts are close at hand, those concerned with choosing or evaluating economic policies should themselves have an understanding of how the economy works. Unfortunately, many policymakers and interested citizens currently lack such knowledge; and they need to know at the least the basics of macroeconomics to make informed decisions on their own. In this insightful book, Charles L. Schultze employs an imaginative format for explaining to busy policymakers and citizens how the economy works and what issues are likely to affect macroeconomic policy. He imagines that the next president has promised to devote one hour a week to learning about key economic principles and has asked the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers for instruction. The book is written as a series of memos to the president on the principles and policy issues that should be understood before making macroeconomic policy judgements. A former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers himself, Schultze clearly explains the key relationships as a background for policy decisions—relationships among domestic and foreign economic forces, and government policies and economic outcomes. The memos rely heavily on the use of real-world examples from recent economic events and policy debates. They focus principally on such policy-related issues as inflation, unemployment, long-term economic growth, and the flow of international trade and capital. The series of short, easy-to-read memos is divided into three groups: the first presents the background, explaining why it is particularly important for policymakers to distinguish between those economic forces that affect total demand in the economy and those that affect total supply; the second addresses the problem of economic stability; and the third looks at long-term economic growth.
Here, the authors challenge the basic theme of The Bell Curve and take on that book's argument that America is rapidly becoming a caste society, rigidly stratified by IQ, with virtually nothing for public policy to do in terms of bridging the gulf.
According to conventional wisdom, government may intervene when private markets fail to provide goods and services that society values. This view has led to the passage of much legislation and the creation of a host of agencies that have attempted, by exquisitely detailed regulations, to compel legislatively defined behavior in a broad range of activities affecting society as a whole—health care, housing, pollution abatement, transportation, to name only a few. Far from achieving the goals of the legislators and regulators, these efforts have been largely ineffective; worse, they have spawned endless litigation and countless administrative proceedings as the individuals and firms on who the regulations fall seek to avoid, or at least soften, their impact. The result has been long delays in determining whether government programs work at all, thwarting of agreed-upon societal aims, and deep skepticism about the power of government to make any difference. Strangely enough in a nation that since its inception has valued both the means and the ends of the private market system, the United States has rarely tried to harness private interests to public goals. Whenever private markets fail to produce some desired good or service (or fail to deter undesirable activity), the remedies proposed have hardly ever involved creating a system of incentives similar to those of the market place so as to make private choice consonant with public virtue. In this revision of the Godkin Lectures presented at Harvard University in November and December 1976, Charles L. Schultze examines the sources of this paradox. He outlines a plan for government intervention that would turn away from the direct "command and control" regulating techniques of the past and rely instead on market-like incentives to encourage people indirectly to take publicly desired actions.
The passage of the Clean Air Act and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1970 marked a sweeping transformation in American politics. In a few short years, the environmental movement pushed Republican and Democratic elected officials to articulate a right to clean air as part of a bevy of new federal guarantees. Charged with delivering on those promises, the EPA represented a bold assertion that the federal government had a responsibility to protect the environment, the authority to command private business to reduce their pollution, and the capacity to dictate how they did so. In Valuing Clean Air, Charles Halvorson examines how the environmental concern that propelled the Clean Air Act and the EPA coincided with economic convulsions that shook the liberal state to its core. Business groups, public interest organizations, think tanks, and a host of other actors, including Ralph Nader, wasted little time after the EPA's creation in identifying and trying to pull the new levers of power. As powerful businesses pressed to roll back regulations, elected officials from both political parties questioned whether the nation could keep its environmental promises. In response, the EPA's staff and leadership practiced a politics of the possible, adopting a monetized approach to environmental value that shielded the agency's rulemaking but sat at odds with environmentalist notions of natural rights and contributed to the elevation of economics as the language and logic of policy. As Halvorson demonstrates, environmental protection came to serve as a central battleground in larger debates over markets, government, and public welfare. For anyone who has wondered where cap and trade came from and how environmental activists came to discuss wetlands protection, air pollution, and fracking in the language of cost-benefit analysis, Valuing Clean Air provides an insightful look at a half-century of the making of US environmental policy.
When policymakers are in need of economic advice, professional economists are never far away. Policymakers, journalists, and citizens all rely on experts to explain various economic developments and policy proposals. While it is fortunate that experts are close at hand, those concerned with choosing or evaluating economic policies should themselves have an understanding of how the economy works. Unfortunately, many policymakers and interested citizens currently lack such knowledge; and they need to know at the least the basics of macroeconomics to make informed decisions on their own. In this insightful book, Charles L. Schultze employs an imaginative format for explaining to busy policymakers and citizens how the economy works and what issues are likely to affect macroeconomic policy. He imagines that the next president has promised to devote one hour a week to learning about key economic principles and has asked the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers for instruction. The book is written as a series of memos to the president on the principles and policy issues that should be understood before making macroeconomic policy judgements. A former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers himself, Schultze clearly explains the key relationships as a background for policy decisions—relationships among domestic and foreign economic forces, and government policies and economic outcomes. The memos rely heavily on the use of real-world examples from recent economic events and policy debates. They focus principally on such policy-related issues as inflation, unemployment, long-term economic growth, and the flow of international trade and capital. The series of short, easy-to-read memos is divided into three groups: the first presents the background, explaining why it is particularly important for policymakers to distinguish between those economic forces that affect total demand in the economy and those that affect total supply; the second addresses the problem of economic stability; and the third looks at long-term economic growth.
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