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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to seek to apply Polanyi's theory of the double movement as a response to the effects of economic liberalization and globalization to the pre-2007 American economy. In so doing, it seeks to ascertain the reasons why this assumed double movement did not materialize until after the post-2007 global economic crisis. Design/methodology/approach – This paper is structured as a theoretical and historical analysis, building upon Polanyi's nineteenth century observations and applying them to contemporary policy economic and social experience in the USA in the late twentieth century. The argument proposes a correlation between the missing and/or delayed movement and the role of access to debt and participation in equity markets. Findings – This paper argues that Polanyi's concept of a societal countermovement has been absent from the post-1970 period of economic liberalism and globalization until just recently due to an explicit attempt by the forces of capital to circumvent its role in lessening the harmful effects of American capitalism. In particular, the double movement that should have sought to lessen income inequality, unemployment and wage stagnation was instead replaced by access to cheap credit and the democratization of market investments that spurred consumer purchases and a false belief that what was good for the markets was good for working class Americans. Research limitations/implications – This paper highlights the need for ongoing research into the sociotropic nature of trade and of economic policy, and its evolution throughout the contemporary period of economic uncertainty and economic transition. Practical implications – The paper proposes several policy implications arising from the contemporary application of Polanyi's double movement, notably related to international trade and public and political support for ongoing trade liberalization. Social implications – This paper highlights important connections in the relationship between economic policy and the day-to-day lives of those who are governed by it. Building on "everyday political economy", it provides a foundation for arguments that a new balance must be found between economic globalization and transnational capital interests and domestic stability. Originality/value – This paper promotes a novel approach to understanding the political economy of pre-2007 America, in particular the reflexive nature of economic policy and societal perceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents new findings from the World Top Incomes Database and discusses some of their policy implications. In particular, the paper provides updated top income series for the United States-including new estimates through 2010, showing a strong rebound of the top 1 percent income share, following the 2008-09 sharp fall. It also presents updated income series for other developed countries (including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Japan) and new series on wealth-income ratios. In light of this extended set of country series, the paper analyzes the relative importance of market and institutional forces in explaining observed cross-country trends, and the likely impact of the Great recession on these long-term evolutions. It discusses the policy implications of the findings, both in terms of optimal tax policy and regarding the interplay between inequality and macroeconomic fragility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using historical, theoretical and empirical arguments, this paper puts forth the notion that it was the rise of US national TV networks in the late 1960s that led to the expansion of federal social regulation and a simultaneous decline of federal economic regulation in the 1970s. The paper argues that national TV networks changed the relative position of national versus local and regional producers and sellers of goods and services. Instead of preferring state and local social regulation, the emerging national firms preferred federal social regulation. Since national markets were emerging, the same national firms lobbied for regulatory reform in transportation and communication services. The rise of national markets associated with national TV networks also stimulated a demand for mergers and consolidations. Data describing these various phenomena are provided in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Defense and commercial trade offsets (also known as countertrade or industrial participation) are valued in the tens of billions of dollars each year andoften accompany the export of advanced technological goods. An offset is any type of non-monetary compensation that a procuring government requires an exporting firm to provide as a condition of the sale and generally commits the exporting firm to spend a certain percentage of the value of the sale in the procuring country. This paper examines 1) how procuring governments use offsets to achieve their goals, and 2) the economic and national security implications of offsets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In popular discussion, much has been made of the susceptibility of government policies to lobbying by foreigners- the general presumption being that this is harmful to the home economy. However, in a trade policy context this may not be the case. If the policy outcome absent any foreign lobbying is characterized by welfare-reducing trade barriers, foreign lobbying may reduce such barriers and possibly raise welfare. using a new data set on foreign political activity in the United States, this paper investigates this question empirically. Tariffs and nontariff barriers are both found to be negatively related with foreign lobbying activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empirical estimates of monetary policy rules suggest that the behavior of U.S. monetary policymakers changed during the past few decades. However, for that same time period, statistical analyses of lagged representations of the economy, such as VARs, often have not rejected the null of structural stability. These two sets of empirical results appear to contradict the Lucas critique. This paper reconciles these results with the Lucas critique by showing that the apparent policy invariance of reduced forms is consistent with the magnitude of historical policy shifts and the relative insensitivity of the reduced forms of plausible forward-looking macroeconomic specifications to policy shifts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comments are presented on the papers "Analysis of the Impact of Capital-Specific Policies or Legislation," by Patric H. Hendershott, and "An Integrated Model of Household Flow-of-Funds Allocations," by David Backus and Douglas Purvis. The impact of capital-specific policies or legislation of household fund allocation in the United States is discussed. The response of the government to several tax avoidance incentives is reviewed. Changes in the structures of taxes or government regulations are discussed. The author also looks at the effects of re-regulation on allocation.

This review of the Commission on Money and Credit is in three sections. The first section describes the background of the commission. The second section discusses the economics of the commission's report. The third section appraises the impact of the commission. The paper is directed to the contributions of monetary commissions to the formation of public policy, and the relationship between the design of the Commission on Money and Credit and its impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the effects of U.S. government buying policies on commercial products and prices. The product policy of the U.S. government contrasts significantly with most other industrial buyers. Products are grouped into classes and bought either through sealed bids, if they pose direct price competition, or through individual contracts. Sealed bids appear to result in lower prices as compared with limited-competitive bids. Experts say this is a result of increased price competition and lower sales costs due to open bidding, single awards, and use of specification.

The effectiveness of government policies and economic stimuli during the 2007 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic are compared in this study. While the 2007 financial crisis started in the real estate market and spread through the contagion effect to other sectors, the pandemic halted the all sectors of the global economy simultaneously. In the United States, where the social safety net is not as strong as other advanced economies, the unemployment rate skyrocketed and many families lost income. The federal government countered with various relief packages, which have been, unlike the rounds of quantitative easing prevalent after the 2007 financial crisis, direct payments to households and businesses. The Agent Instability Indicator and default elasticity coefficient are used to quantitatively assess the financial instability and default risk of subgroups of United States households classified by percentile of income and net worth. It turns out that the financial instability level of the United States household during the pandemic has not been as high as that during the 2007 crisis and the Great Recession. It is concluded that the direct handout of cash—so called helicopter money—is more effective at preventing financial collapse and stabilizing the economy than quantitative easing through asset purchase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sets out an improved framework for examining critical junctures. This framework, while rigorous and broadly applicable and an advance on the frameworks currently employed, primarily seeks to incorporate an a priori element. Until now the frameworks utilized in examining critical junctures were entirely postdictive. Adding a predictive element to the concept will constitute a significant advance. The new framework, and its predictive element, termed the "differentiating factor," is tested here in examining macro-economic crises and subsequent changes in macro-economic policy, in America and Sweden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the changes in the monetary policy of Australia and the U.S. for the period since 1985. The average number of weeks between policy changes was 8.9 weeks for the United States and 16.6 weeks for Australia. Australian monetary policy was changed less frequently than that of the United States. In the pre-announcement period the average number of weeks between policy changes for Australia was 10.7 compared with 5.2 weeks in the United States. In the announcement period the average number of weeks was 18.2 weeks for the United States and 26.6 weeks for Australia. Australian monetary policy has been changed less frequently than US monetary policy throughout the period, although the relative number of changes has dropped slightly in the post-1990 period.

During World War II, government expenditures were financed primarily by issuing debt. During the Korean War, expenditures were financed almost exclusively by higher taxes, reflecting President Truman'; preference for balanced budgets. This paper evaluates quantitatively the economic effects of the different policies used to finance these two wars. Counterfactual experiments are used to explore the implications of financing World War II like the Korean War, and financing the Korean War like World War II. I find that using a Korean War policy during World War II would have resulted in much lower output and welfare relative to the actual policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the implications of a social choice theory institutionalizing majority rule in the U.S. government for economic policy making. These two theorems are the instability results of pure majority rule which have led theorists to the conclusion that majority rule lacks equilibrium. For any alternative, there exists alternatives that command a majority against it and individuals with the incentive to place these on the agenda. the majority rule dominance relation and not about different majority rule institutions. The latter are characterized not only by dominance relation, but also by an arrangement that determines which alternatives will be compared with one another. The congressional committee assignment rule comes into play by allowing those most interested in this jurisdiction the right to agenda access and hence to a large degree of influence over the final outcome. While outcomes in the abstract depend upon arbitrary choices the particular one that prevails occurs because of constraints on access and admissibility in the agenda formation process. In order for social choice theory to be applicable to real world legislatures, the theorems must accommodate agenda formation as a highly refined and complex game institutionalized in the rules.

The article discusses economist Edwin E. Witte's concept of the role of government in the economy. Witte knew that his concept of the economic role of government was crucial to his work and thought, and to it he allocated much time and effort. Witte prefe

Examines the allocation of energy resources in the United States. How some are worrying about the exhaustion of petroleum supplies; Discussion of the role of markets for resources; Details on the efficient allocation of energy resources; Recoverable energy resources in the world; Technologies used in processing energy resources; Cost of intermediate energy products without the cost of royalties; Terminal conditions and discount rates or backstop technology; Environmental constraints; Results of the basic case which states there are sufficient energy resources for two hundred years; Exploration of gasoline pricing; Role of foreign trade; Implications for energy policy.

The article focuses on the legislation requiring the Secretary of the United States Department of the Treasury to purchase silver bullion to use for the creation of silver dollars in the United States. The act of February 28,1878, requires the Secretary of the Treasury to purchase every month not less than two million dollars' worth nor more than four million dollars' worth of silver bullion, and to coin this bullion into silver dollars, which are legal tender without limit. When the act of 1878 was passed, it seems to have been expected that the actual silver dollar would go into circulation without difficulty. Finally, beginning in the latter part of 1886, the volume of the silver currency expands, and gains rapidly on the total coinage, causing a steady decline in the amount of the dead silver. Even in 1885 when the general movement was strongly towards a reduction in its volume, there was an increase in the closing months of the year. The Treasury has made every effort to get them out of its hands, going so far as to pay the cost of transporting them from the sub-treasuries to any point where they may be wanted. The premium so offered to persons who have occasion to use money in small denominations, and especially to large employers of labor, causes considerable quantities of them to be sent for and used but the great bulk of them return to the Treasury almost at once.

The article presents response of the author on comments made by Lewis E. Hill on the papers "Toward a Reconciliation of Institutional Economics and Its Critics" and "Beyond the Market Economy Building Institutions That Work," by Clarence E. Ayres that were published in the March 1970 issue of the periodical "Social Science Quarterly." Under appropriate arrangements for doing things, that is, under an appropriate institutional structure, the propensity to truck and barter naturally entails the creation of markets, which are themselves arrangements for effecting exchange. In the U.S., the institutional structure is such that markets permeate most of the economy. For example, in August 1970, nearly 84 per cent of total civilian employment was in the private sector, all of which consists of regulated and more or less unregulated markets. Thus, employing scholar Robert L. Heilbroner's system of classification, the economy of the U.S. would be appropriately designated as essentially a market system, as the author did in his introduction to Ayres' classic. "Institutionalism and Economic Development." But Ayres objects to him, that the U.S. economy is an industrial economy. Unfortunately, his is not intended to be a cross-classification, which, if correct, would be a suitable complement rather than a substitute for the one that the author employed, since Ayres says prefatorily, and the author flatly denies that the U.S. economy is a market economy.

A minimum liquidity requirement for savings and loan associations has been in effect since 1950, and during the last five or six years the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB) has used the requirement as an instrument of its policy seeking to stabilize conditions in the mortgage market. The purpose of this study is to investigate the merits of the liquidity requirement in general, and in particular its effectiveness as an instrument of the Board's counter-cyclical policy. Specifically, we wish to question whether over the period from 1971 through 1975 changes in the liquidity requirement have achieved the desired effect in the mortgage market. Equations for the supply of mortgages by S&L's are developed, and regressions are run using monthly data from the period February, 1971 through October, 1975. We conclude from our statistical work that both increases and decreases in the minimum liquidity requirement have had no discernable effect on mortgages made by S&L's. In order to understand better the role and use of the liquidity requirement, we begin with a brief survey of its history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To recapitulate in case words have obscured meanings! I have assumed that government wartime price control will be dropped some time after the war ceases. I have assumed, too, that there will be an interval during which our industrial and marketing system will be recognizably similar to that of the prewar period. Under these conditions it seemed reasonable to assume that the interest in price control would shift from wartime government controls in order to hold prices down to a combination of private and governmental control to restrain aggressive price cutting. This interest will be derived from normal trading forces and will be nurtured and find expression through the prewar expansion of price regulation intended to protect competitors from injurious, or in general, unfair price competition. Under favorable conditions this general tendency should not in itself have serious untoward consequences so far as the general effectiveness of competition is concerned. But, under unfavorable conditions, especially if there should be serious unemployment, additional crude and short-sighted circumscriptions upon price competition might appear. This whole tendency is an evidence of industrial maturity. It remains to be seen if we shall have also the wisdom of maturity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an evaluation of U.S. wartime price control. During World War II price control in the U.S. went through several stages of development. The U.S. began with selective price fixing in 1941. This practice dictates that the price of one commodity after another is fixed. The policy was made mandatory under the Emergency Price Control Act of January, 31, 1942. It was replaced by the General Maximum Price Regulation policy, instituted on April, 29, 1942. Critics say the policy is ill-equipped to handle wages and farm prices.

The article focuses on the effects of economic stabilization policy has had on investment planning. It states that efforts at economic stabilization after World War II have had some success, which has resulted in an improved climate for investment. It suggests that government policies should be designed to encourage private spending, either by altering the way the economy responds to cyclical disturbances or by inducing changes in total demand. It comments on the use of forecasting to help in preventing recessions or other economic downturns.

The article presents information on some new books on transportation and communication with special reference to the book "Transportation by Water," by E.R. Hamacher. The subject of water transportation, both on ocean highways and on interior waterways of the United States is divided into six parts the water transportation system including the ocean carrier, ocean routes and terminals organization agencies and services, shipping documents, relation of car tiers with one another, freight classification and charges and government aid and shipping policy. The chapters dealing with the ocean carrier, the transportation facilities and services on the Great Lakes and on American rivers and canals, the operating organization of vessel lines on ocean and inland waterways, shipping documents, the relations of railways with water carriers, and the inland water ways policy of the United States are especially noteworthy. Vessel structure and arrangements, shipping papers and departmental organization of transportation companies are illustrated in plates! copies and diagrams.

The substantial increase in economic inequality in favor of the upper income group in the United States and many other developed and developing nations during the past 30 years has become a major concern in public policy. Modifications of the standard measures of inequality, the Lorenz curve and Gini index, are proposed that better reflect the decline in the share of income received by the poor and middle portions of the income distribution relative to the upper end. A second pair of curves based on the fractions of either the middle or lower portion of the income curve that has the same share as the topu% and the areas between them and the line of equality are introduced. The proposed curves and related measures indicate that a noticeably greater change in the U.S. income distribution occurred during the 1967–2013 time period than are observed in the Lorenz curve and Gini index. The maximum difference between the proposed curves for the income and wealth data in the United Kingdom's 2010–2012 survey are greater than that of the Lorenz curve. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents response of the author on comments made by Lewis E. Hill on the papers "Toward a Reconciliation of Institutional Economics and Its Critics" by Coldwell Daniel and "Beyond the Market Economy Building Institutions That Work" that were published in the March 1970 issue of the periodical "Social Science Quarterly." Hill's Comment on the exchange between Daniel and the author is perfectly right in pointing out that he gave no reasons for insisting that theirs is an industrial economy rather than a market economy, as Daniel has declared. If it is not too late, the author would like to repair that omission. In various important senses theirs is of course a market economy. Obviously buying and selling go on almost everywhere and almost all the time; and scholar Karl Polanyi was quite right in pointing out that ours is the only economy in history in which buying and selling have been as general and as significant as they are today throughout the Western world--or at least throughout the free world. The question is: significant of what? Many writers have maintained that freedom to buy and sell is the quintessence of freedom, and that people who do not enjoy this freedom are not free. This may be true. But it is not the whole story. In particular it is not the whole story of economic development. Such freedom --the market may have been a necessary condition but not the determinant of the modern Western economy.

Stabilization policies frequently aim to boost spending as a means to increase gross domestic product. Spending does not necessarily translate into production, however, especially when inventories are involved. We look at the 'cash-for-clunkers' program that helped finance the purchase of nearly 700,000 vehicles in 2009. An analysis of auto sales and production movements reveals that the program did prompt a large spike in sales. But the program had only a modest and fleeting impact on production, as inventories buffered the movements in sales. These findings suggest caution in judging the efficacy of such policies by their impact on spending alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses on the measure used to gauge poverty in the U.S., Europe and other developing countries. It discusses that the present official measure of poverty in the U.S. is flawed and both, the poverty threshold and measurement of available resources should be improved. It reports that European countries provided with sufficient social aid but they face a technical problem of relative poverty threshold. Also mentioned are the levels of economic development in developing and underdeveloped countries.

How do states compare to one another, and to themselves, in innovation capacity and past innovation performance? Are there groups of states that are more or less similar in innovation capacity composition? Because different score dimensions vary independently, it is possible for states to be high on some dimensions and low on others. In an effort to give greater meaning to innovation index scores, it is necessary to evaluate the relationships among them. This article subjects Hall's innovation capacity index scores to cluster analysis to reveal clusters of states that are similar in innovation capacity levels across the three dimensions considered. A cluster typology is created, and state changes in typology are observed and compared over the 20-year period of the data set. Patterns observed across states and over time will help policy makers to identify major changes in their typology that may reflect goal progress or regression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 1965 a significant portion of the US Department of Agriculture's extramural research budget has been earmarked by Congress for particular research projects. We analyze the process by which a minority of Congress induces the USDA to carry out its budgetary suggestions. We present evidence demonstrating the influence that appropriators possess over the allocation of earmarked grants. Finally, we argue that this program provides an excellent illustration of path-dependence in government policy, and that an understanding of the special grants program may shed light on the decline of science at the USDA and Congress's reluctance to increase agricultural research funding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars, practitioners, and policy makers have all called for greater connectivity between workforce development and economic development to more efficiently connect people to jobs and improve regional competitiveness. Economic and policy changes of the last decade have created a fertile environment for collaborative models of achieving workforce and economic development goals simultaneously. Employing survey results from 170 workforce administrators across the United States, the author uses regression analysis to examine the factors that influence connection and to understand the relationship between this connection, the use of sector-based strategies, and development outcomes. The results suggest that connectivity is increasing and has a positive influence on the use of sector-based strategies. In addition, both the level of connection and the use of sectors have significant influence on achieving desired outcomes. Understanding and enhancing the strategic linkage across the two functions are critical for connecting people to jobs and building strong economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The share of raw milk meeting fluid quality (Grade A) standards in the United States rose steadily through the latter half of the twentieth century, but a shrinking portion of that was used in fluid products. Grade A milk exceeds the quality standards for the manufactured products for which it has been increasingly used. We present an econometric model that exploits regional and temporal variation in policy implementation to identify the effect of marketing orders on the Grade A share of milk. Results support the hypothesis that marketing orders significantly encouraged the growth in the Grade A share of milk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to liberal arguments for American hegemony a dangerous world needs American power. How does the liberal view hold up against the reality test of how political aims are interpreted and implemented by security professionals? I argue that many security operations are embedded in strategies of political brinkmanship. The second part explores whether American economic policies too can be viewed as brinkmanship. This concerns the ramifications of 'free market' policies for the United States at a time when exports become imports, the trade deficit deepens, income inequality widens and external deficits rise to unsustainable levels. In closing I reflect on the rationality of political and economic brinkmanship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have long argued that Presidents are less protectionist than Congress while Senators are less so than Representatives due to their larger constituencies. Yet until now this theory has escaped scrutiny. I argue that it is based on a misguided view of trade policy as distributive politics. I show via a series of tests that the theory is untenable. Unlike their differences in constituency size, the pro-trade leanings of the Presidency and Senate are postwar phenomena. Even now state size is unrelated to Senators’ votes on trade. In tests pooling legislators from both Houses, chamber membership predicts votes while constituency size generally does not. Senators are even less protectionist than Representatives with identical constituencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article aims to present a conceptual framework for the analysis of ecosystem services (ES) supply in the U.S. It will also discuss some of the data and modeling issues that arise in predicting farmers' participation in ES contracts and the supply of ES resulting from them. To frame the discussion, the researchers outline a model of the supply of ES that illustrates the ways that spatial and system complexity can affect it. This model is used to discuss the data and modeling issues that arise in empirical implementation.

The article cites a study that presents a brief history of regulation of broiler contracts in the U.S. Two possible sources of market failure that may justify regulation are identified. These are the asymmetric bargaining power between integrators and contract growers and imperfect information. Rationale for regulating broiler production contracts can be found in two economic theories, referring to the public interest theory and the economic theory of regulation. The competition between the integrator companies and contract growers will result in regulation that favors poultry integrator companies at the expense of contract growers.

The article addresses issues related to ethics and economic policy for the food system in the United States and in developing countries. The author enumerates the most important ethical issues related to economic policy for the food system and how economists should deal with these issues. The factors affecting food systems in the U.S. and developing countries, and how problems related to the systems can be solved, are discussed and analyzed by the author.

The ongoing industrialization of U.S. agriculture encompasses important changes in farm production practices, in the organization of farm input and output markets, and in the mix of activities carried out by farm operators. In this article, selected examples from work at the Economic Research Service are used to describe the links among organizational economics, policy analysis, and U.S. agriculture. The authors first provide examples associated with concentration, contracting, and the erosion of open markets. The authors then use an analysis of technology adoption to argue that organizational economics can draw on organizational features from agriculture in addition to informing agricultural policy analysis.

This article discusses the economic impact of government regulation and reviews the increasing use of economic analysis in regulatory decision-making in the U.S. in 1998. Expenditures incurred because federal environmental, health, and safety regulation have grown dramatically in recent decades, and now total several hundred billion dollars annually. These costs appear likely to increase significantly in the next decade. Yet the economic impacts of regulation receive much less scrutiny than direct, budgeted government spending. The potential gains of regulatory reform are substantial. Research suggests that more than half of the federal government's regulations would fail a strict benefit-cost test using the government's own numbers.

The article discusses the revival of sectionalism in the United States in the form of a frostbelt-sunbelt rivalry. The new rivalry and friction between the two regions manifested several policy areas, including New York City aid, community development block grants, and defense basing arrangements. The energy policy become one of the more clamorous areas for frostbelt-sunbelt controversy. The frostbelt approached national energy policy to be in line with Moynihan's rhetoric. The energy policy became the new "War the States" as the Americans look to Washington for a resolution.

This article discusses the U.S. government policy towards the federal deficit. By definition, a budget deficit means that the government spends more money than it receives, or, in other words, that it creates more purchasing power by its expenditures than it destroys through taxes. Some early proponents of fiscal policy argued that the size of the debt and of the interest payments on it are not important. Indeed, only 12 percent of the debt was owned abroad; some 32 percent was owned by the Federal government itself, via trust funds, various Federal agencies and Federal Reserve banks. There is some truth in this argument, but it should not: be exaggerated. Even if all Federal bonds were owned by Americans and all interest on the debt received by them, problems created by the existence of a large debt and by the need to transfer some 200 billion dollars from the taxpayers to the bondholders would remain. There are times and conditions calling for a deficit. Without it, unemployment may rise and the GNP fall, thus raising, rather than lowering, the debt burden.

President Reagan came to the While House promising a major shift to conservative economic policies. His program included a supply- side revolution, a scaling down of wasteful government activity, lower taxes and less interference with the market economy. As a result, it was expected, the US economy would become more efficient, with faster growth and minimal inflation. Tax reductions would pay for themselves so that the budget would soon return to balance. Fiscal expansion did help bring down unemployment, but the administration soon learned that tag cuts led to trade and budget Though early dreams remain unfulfilled, the Reagan period represents a turning point in US economic polity making. Inflation has been much reduced, and the credibility of tight monetary policy enhanced. More importantly, there are signs that Reagan has won his political bet: early tax cuts generated budget deficits which exerted the pressure required to turn the tide of rising government spending, and change its composition. The verdict on supply-side policies is not yet clear. Two major tax reforms (in 1981–83 and 1986) have profoundly modified the landscape. Investment has been shielded from the effects of a tight anti-inflationary monetary policy and many distortions have been reduced. So far, however, there is little evidence either of any increase in private savings or of a boost to productivity. On the liability side, the US now faces a larger public debt and has become indebted to the rest of the world. Corrective actions will have to be taken, and some are already under way. They will have significant but not dramatic costs. With all its shortcomings, Reaganomics has achieved more than most conservative policies in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article the article presents a study in public administration that discusses the implementation of interorganizational policy in a theoretical perspective in the U.S. Interorganizational problems are caused, in part, by the lack of attention to and incentives for coordination among organizations. If policies or organizations set up administrative coordinating units specifically to implement such policies, these problems might be reduced. But such units might further fragment structure and inhibit the organization's ability to implement its own tasks efficiently. Thus, the problem cuts both ways.

This article presents a psychodynamic perspective on the relationship between an administrator and an advisor. The article examines ways in which bureaucratic incentive systems in which administrators work, as well as the advising relationship itself, contribute to an ambivalence toward an advisor. This ambivalence is expressed in a desire simultaneously to find that the adviser is powerful and to render the advisor impotent. The analysis forecasts on ways in which the advisor's status as outsider, perceived as that of intruder, contributes to efforts to withhold information from the advisor, to discredit the advisor's competence, to sabotage the advisor's recommendations, and to scapegoat the advisor. All advising relationships contain the potential for such efforts, and effective advising depends on a recognition of and response to this potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I consider the labor-market effects of mandates which raise the costs of employing a demographically identifiable group. The efficiency of these policies will be largely dependent on the extent to which their costs are shifted to group-specific wages. I study several state and federal mandates which stipulated that childbirth be covered comprehensively in health insurance plans, raising the relative cost of insuring women of childbearing age. I find substantial shifting of the costs of these mandates to the wages of the targeted group. Correspondingly, I find little effect on total labor input for that group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public policies are often made without much recourse to economic reasoning. Economists are often unaware of what is happening in the world of public affairs As a result, both the quality of public decision-making and the role that economists play in it are less than optimal. This new feature on current policy issues will offer short articles on topics that are on the current agendas of policy makers and provide nonspecialists with a better understanding of the role of economic analysis in illuminating current debates. Suggestions for future columns and comments on past ones should be sent to Isabel V. Sawhill, c/o Journal of Economic Perspectives, The Urban Institute. 2100 M Street N.W., Washington. D.C. 20037. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]