Author: Arthur M. Okun
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815726546
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 171
Book Description
Originally published in 1975, Equality and Efficiency: The Big Tradeoff is a very personal work from one of the most important macroeconomists of the last hundred years. And this new edition includes "Further Thoughts on Equality and Efficiency," a paper published by the author two years later. In classrooms Arthur M. Okun may be best remembered for Okun's Law, but his lasting legacy is the respect and admiration he earned from economists, practitioners, and policymakers. Equality and Efficiency is the perfect embodiment of that legacy, valued both by professional economists and those readers with a keen interest in social policy. To his fellow economists, Okun presents messages, in the form of additional comments and select citations, in his footnotes. To all readers, Okun presents an engaging dual theme: the market needs a place, and the market needs to be kept in its place. As Okun puts it: Institutions in a capitalist democracy prod us to get ahead of our neighbors economically after telling us to stay in line socially. This double standard professes and pursues an egalitarian political and social system while simultaneously generating gaping disparities in economic well-being. Today, Okun's dual theme feels incredibly prescient as we grapple with the hot-button topic of income inequality. In his foreword, Lawrence H. Summers declares: On what one might think of as questions of "economic philosophy," I doubt that Okun has been improved on in the subsequent interval. His discussion of how societies rely on rights as well as markets should be required reading for all young economists who are enamored with market solutions to all problems. With a new foreword by Lawrence H. Summers
Equality and Efficiency REV
Author: Arthur M. Okun
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815726546
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 171
Book Description
Originally published in 1975, Equality and Efficiency: The Big Tradeoff is a very personal work from one of the most important macroeconomists of the last hundred years. And this new edition includes "Further Thoughts on Equality and Efficiency," a paper published by the author two years later. In classrooms Arthur M. Okun may be best remembered for Okun's Law, but his lasting legacy is the respect and admiration he earned from economists, practitioners, and policymakers. Equality and Efficiency is the perfect embodiment of that legacy, valued both by professional economists and those readers with a keen interest in social policy. To his fellow economists, Okun presents messages, in the form of additional comments and select citations, in his footnotes. To all readers, Okun presents an engaging dual theme: the market needs a place, and the market needs to be kept in its place. As Okun puts it: Institutions in a capitalist democracy prod us to get ahead of our neighbors economically after telling us to stay in line socially. This double standard professes and pursues an egalitarian political and social system while simultaneously generating gaping disparities in economic well-being. Today, Okun's dual theme feels incredibly prescient as we grapple with the hot-button topic of income inequality. In his foreword, Lawrence H. Summers declares: On what one might think of as questions of "economic philosophy," I doubt that Okun has been improved on in the subsequent interval. His discussion of how societies rely on rights as well as markets should be required reading for all young economists who are enamored with market solutions to all problems. With a new foreword by Lawrence H. Summers
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815726546
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 171
Book Description
Originally published in 1975, Equality and Efficiency: The Big Tradeoff is a very personal work from one of the most important macroeconomists of the last hundred years. And this new edition includes "Further Thoughts on Equality and Efficiency," a paper published by the author two years later. In classrooms Arthur M. Okun may be best remembered for Okun's Law, but his lasting legacy is the respect and admiration he earned from economists, practitioners, and policymakers. Equality and Efficiency is the perfect embodiment of that legacy, valued both by professional economists and those readers with a keen interest in social policy. To his fellow economists, Okun presents messages, in the form of additional comments and select citations, in his footnotes. To all readers, Okun presents an engaging dual theme: the market needs a place, and the market needs to be kept in its place. As Okun puts it: Institutions in a capitalist democracy prod us to get ahead of our neighbors economically after telling us to stay in line socially. This double standard professes and pursues an egalitarian political and social system while simultaneously generating gaping disparities in economic well-being. Today, Okun's dual theme feels incredibly prescient as we grapple with the hot-button topic of income inequality. In his foreword, Lawrence H. Summers declares: On what one might think of as questions of "economic philosophy," I doubt that Okun has been improved on in the subsequent interval. His discussion of how societies rely on rights as well as markets should be required reading for all young economists who are enamored with market solutions to all problems. With a new foreword by Lawrence H. Summers
Equality and Efficiency REV
Author: Arthur M. Okun
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815726546
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 171
Book Description
Originally published in 1975, Equality and Efficiency: The Big Tradeoff is a very personal work from one of the most important macroeconomists of the last hundred years. And this new edition includes "Further Thoughts on Equality and Efficiency," a paper published by the author two years later. In classrooms Arthur M. Okun may be best remembered for Okun's Law, but his lasting legacy is the respect and admiration he earned from economists, practitioners, and policymakers. Equality and Efficiency is the perfect embodiment of that legacy, valued both by professional economists and those readers with a keen interest in social policy. To his fellow economists, Okun presents messages, in the form of additional comments and select citations, in his footnotes. To all readers, Okun presents an engaging dual theme: the market needs a place, and the market needs to be kept in its place. As Okun puts it: Institutions in a capitalist democracy prod us to get ahead of our neighbors economically after telling us to stay in line socially. This double standard professes and pursues an egalitarian political and social system while simultaneously generating gaping disparities in economic well-being. Today, Okun's dual theme feels incredibly prescient as we grapple with the hot-button topic of income inequality. In his foreword, Lawrence H. Summers declares: On what one might think of as questions of "economic philosophy," I doubt that Okun has been improved on in the subsequent interval. His discussion of how societies rely on rights as well as markets should be required reading for all young economists who are enamored with market solutions to all problems. With a new foreword by Lawrence H. Summers
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815726546
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 171
Book Description
Originally published in 1975, Equality and Efficiency: The Big Tradeoff is a very personal work from one of the most important macroeconomists of the last hundred years. And this new edition includes "Further Thoughts on Equality and Efficiency," a paper published by the author two years later. In classrooms Arthur M. Okun may be best remembered for Okun's Law, but his lasting legacy is the respect and admiration he earned from economists, practitioners, and policymakers. Equality and Efficiency is the perfect embodiment of that legacy, valued both by professional economists and those readers with a keen interest in social policy. To his fellow economists, Okun presents messages, in the form of additional comments and select citations, in his footnotes. To all readers, Okun presents an engaging dual theme: the market needs a place, and the market needs to be kept in its place. As Okun puts it: Institutions in a capitalist democracy prod us to get ahead of our neighbors economically after telling us to stay in line socially. This double standard professes and pursues an egalitarian political and social system while simultaneously generating gaping disparities in economic well-being. Today, Okun's dual theme feels incredibly prescient as we grapple with the hot-button topic of income inequality. In his foreword, Lawrence H. Summers declares: On what one might think of as questions of "economic philosophy," I doubt that Okun has been improved on in the subsequent interval. His discussion of how societies rely on rights as well as markets should be required reading for all young economists who are enamored with market solutions to all problems. With a new foreword by Lawrence H. Summers
Efficiency, Equality and the Ownership of Property (Routledge Revivals)
Author: James E. Meade
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136258876
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 97
Book Description
First published in 1964, this is a study of the extreme inequalities in the ownership of property, in economies across the globe. Professor Meade examines in depth the economic, demographic and social factors which lead to such inequalities. He considers a wide range of remedial policies – educational development, reformed death duties and capital taxes, demographic policies, trade union action, the socialization of property, the development of a property-owning democracy, the expansion of the welfare state. The argument is expressed in precise analytical terms, but the main exposition is free of mathematics and technical jargon and is designed for the interested layman as well as the economist.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136258876
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 97
Book Description
First published in 1964, this is a study of the extreme inequalities in the ownership of property, in economies across the globe. Professor Meade examines in depth the economic, demographic and social factors which lead to such inequalities. He considers a wide range of remedial policies – educational development, reformed death duties and capital taxes, demographic policies, trade union action, the socialization of property, the development of a property-owning democracy, the expansion of the welfare state. The argument is expressed in precise analytical terms, but the main exposition is free of mathematics and technical jargon and is designed for the interested layman as well as the economist.
Thinking Like an Economist
Author: Elizabeth Popp Berman
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691248885
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 344
Book Description
The story of how economic reasoning came to dominate Washington between the 1960s and 1980s—and why it continues to constrain progressive ambitions today For decades, Democratic politicians have frustrated progressives by tinkering around the margins of policy while shying away from truly ambitious change. What happened to bold political vision on the left, and what shrunk the very horizons of possibility? In Thinking like an Economist, Elizabeth Popp Berman tells the story of how a distinctive way of thinking—an “economic style of reasoning”—became dominant in Washington between the 1960s and the 1980s and how it continues to dramatically narrow debates over public policy today. Introduced by liberal technocrats who hoped to improve government, this way of thinking was grounded in economics but also transformed law and policy. At its core was an economic understanding of efficiency, and its advocates often found themselves allied with Republicans and in conflict with liberal Democrats who argued for rights, equality, and limits on corporate power. By the Carter administration, economic reasoning had spread throughout government policy and laws affecting poverty, healthcare, antitrust, transportation, and the environment. Fearing waste and overspending, liberals reined in their ambitions for decades to come, even as Reagan and his Republican successors argued for economic efficiency only when it helped their own goals. A compelling account that illuminates what brought American politics to its current state, Thinking like an Economist also offers critical lessons for the future. With the political left resurgent today, Democrats seem poised to break with the past—but doing so will require abandoning the shibboleth of economic efficiency and successfully advocating new ways of thinking about policy.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691248885
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 344
Book Description
The story of how economic reasoning came to dominate Washington between the 1960s and 1980s—and why it continues to constrain progressive ambitions today For decades, Democratic politicians have frustrated progressives by tinkering around the margins of policy while shying away from truly ambitious change. What happened to bold political vision on the left, and what shrunk the very horizons of possibility? In Thinking like an Economist, Elizabeth Popp Berman tells the story of how a distinctive way of thinking—an “economic style of reasoning”—became dominant in Washington between the 1960s and the 1980s and how it continues to dramatically narrow debates over public policy today. Introduced by liberal technocrats who hoped to improve government, this way of thinking was grounded in economics but also transformed law and policy. At its core was an economic understanding of efficiency, and its advocates often found themselves allied with Republicans and in conflict with liberal Democrats who argued for rights, equality, and limits on corporate power. By the Carter administration, economic reasoning had spread throughout government policy and laws affecting poverty, healthcare, antitrust, transportation, and the environment. Fearing waste and overspending, liberals reined in their ambitions for decades to come, even as Reagan and his Republican successors argued for economic efficiency only when it helped their own goals. A compelling account that illuminates what brought American politics to its current state, Thinking like an Economist also offers critical lessons for the future. With the political left resurgent today, Democrats seem poised to break with the past—but doing so will require abandoning the shibboleth of economic efficiency and successfully advocating new ways of thinking about policy.
Accessibility, Equity and Efficiency
Author: Karst T. Geurs
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1784717894
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 260
Book Description
Leading researchers from around the world show, in this volume, the importance of accessibility in contemporary issues such as rural depopulation, investments in public services and public transport, and transport infrastructure investments in Europe. The trade-offs between accessibility, economic development and equity are comprehensively examined, and a variety of approaches to measuring accessibility and equality presented. The book’s interdisciplinary contributions also provide different geographical contexts, from the US to various European and developing countries, and cover ex ante and ex post evaluation of transport investment. Improving transport accessibility is a main objective in transport policy and planning in developed and developing countries all over the world. Investment is motivated by the need to develop and/or reduce spatial or social inequalities. However, the economic and equity implications of investments in transport are not straightforward. The concepts of accessibility and equity can be defined and operationalized in many different ways, influencing outcomes and conclusions. Moreover, equity and efficiency goals are often conflicting. Accessibility models not only help to explain spatial and transport patterns in developed and developing countries but are also powerful tools to explain the equity and efficiency impacts of urban and transport policies and projects. This state-of-the-art overview of the accessibility–economic efficiency–equity relationship will appeal to researchers as well as transport and urban planners interested in accessibility issues and transport/regional developments.
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1784717894
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 260
Book Description
Leading researchers from around the world show, in this volume, the importance of accessibility in contemporary issues such as rural depopulation, investments in public services and public transport, and transport infrastructure investments in Europe. The trade-offs between accessibility, economic development and equity are comprehensively examined, and a variety of approaches to measuring accessibility and equality presented. The book’s interdisciplinary contributions also provide different geographical contexts, from the US to various European and developing countries, and cover ex ante and ex post evaluation of transport investment. Improving transport accessibility is a main objective in transport policy and planning in developed and developing countries all over the world. Investment is motivated by the need to develop and/or reduce spatial or social inequalities. However, the economic and equity implications of investments in transport are not straightforward. The concepts of accessibility and equity can be defined and operationalized in many different ways, influencing outcomes and conclusions. Moreover, equity and efficiency goals are often conflicting. Accessibility models not only help to explain spatial and transport patterns in developed and developing countries but are also powerful tools to explain the equity and efficiency impacts of urban and transport policies and projects. This state-of-the-art overview of the accessibility–economic efficiency–equity relationship will appeal to researchers as well as transport and urban planners interested in accessibility issues and transport/regional developments.
Freedom, Efficiency and Equality
Author: T. Wilkinson
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9781349408498
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 199
Book Description
This book defends equality against the objection that, due to its failure to provide incentives, it must conflict with either freedom or efficiency, or both. It explains the problem of incentives, the relationship between freedom, efficiency, and equality, and the difficulties of describing an ideal egalitarian economy, before concluding with its own radical solution, a scheme of social duty in a market system. Freedom, Efficiency and Equality combines techniques from across several disciplines in an accessible fashion in its discussion of a central topic in political theory and normative economies.
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9781349408498
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 199
Book Description
This book defends equality against the objection that, due to its failure to provide incentives, it must conflict with either freedom or efficiency, or both. It explains the problem of incentives, the relationship between freedom, efficiency, and equality, and the difficulties of describing an ideal egalitarian economy, before concluding with its own radical solution, a scheme of social duty in a market system. Freedom, Efficiency and Equality combines techniques from across several disciplines in an accessible fashion in its discussion of a central topic in political theory and normative economies.
Liberty, Equality and Efficiency
Author: J.E. Meade
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1349130842
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 261
Book Description
This book discusses a set of radical changes in economic institutions and policies designed to show an efficient but socially acceptable third way between Keynesian inflation and monetarist unemployment, and between the inefficiencies of socialist centralisation and the ravages of unrestrained capitalist competition. It consists of a reprint of Efficiency, Equality and the Ownership of Property together with four recent papers including a highly revised version of the well-known tract Agathotopia: The Economics of Partnership.
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1349130842
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 261
Book Description
This book discusses a set of radical changes in economic institutions and policies designed to show an efficient but socially acceptable third way between Keynesian inflation and monetarist unemployment, and between the inefficiencies of socialist centralisation and the ravages of unrestrained capitalist competition. It consists of a reprint of Efficiency, Equality and the Ownership of Property together with four recent papers including a highly revised version of the well-known tract Agathotopia: The Economics of Partnership.
A Theory of Fairness and Social Welfare
Author: Marc Fleurbaey
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139498770
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 315
Book Description
The definition and measurement of social welfare have been a vexed issue for the past century. This book makes a constructive, easily applicable proposal and suggests how to evaluate the economic situation of a society in a way that gives priority to the worse-off and that respects each individual's preferences over his or her own consumption, work, leisure and so on. This approach resonates with the current concern to go 'beyond the GDP' in the measurement of social progress. Compared to technical studies in welfare economics, this book emphasizes constructive results rather than paradoxes and impossibilities, and shows how one can start from basic principles of efficiency and fairness and end up with concrete evaluations of policies. Compared to more philosophical treatments of social justice, this book is more precise about the definition of social welfare and reaches conclusions about concrete policies and institutions only after a rigorous derivation from clearly stated principles.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139498770
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 315
Book Description
The definition and measurement of social welfare have been a vexed issue for the past century. This book makes a constructive, easily applicable proposal and suggests how to evaluate the economic situation of a society in a way that gives priority to the worse-off and that respects each individual's preferences over his or her own consumption, work, leisure and so on. This approach resonates with the current concern to go 'beyond the GDP' in the measurement of social progress. Compared to technical studies in welfare economics, this book emphasizes constructive results rather than paradoxes and impossibilities, and shows how one can start from basic principles of efficiency and fairness and end up with concrete evaluations of policies. Compared to more philosophical treatments of social justice, this book is more precise about the definition of social welfare and reaches conclusions about concrete policies and institutions only after a rigorous derivation from clearly stated principles.
Legal Secrets
Author: Kim Lane Scheppele
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226737782
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 392
Book Description
Does the seller of a house have to tell the buyer that the water is turned off twelve hours a day? Does the buyer of a great quantity of tobacco have to inform the seller that the military blockade of the local port, which had depressed tobacco sales and lowered prices, is about to end? Courts say yes in the first case, no in the second. How can we understand the difference in judgments? And what does it say about whether the psychiatrist should disclose to his patient's girlfriend that the patient wants to kill her? Kim Lane Scheppele answers the question, Which secrets are legal secrets and what makes them so? She challenges the economic theory of law, which argues that judges decide cases in ways that maximize efficiency, and she shows that judges use equality as an important principle in their decisions. In the course of thinking about secrets, Scheppele also explores broader questions about judicial reasoning—how judges find meaning in legal texts and how they infuse every fact summary with the values of their legal culture. Finally, the specific insights about secrecy are shown to be consistent with a general moral theory of law that indicates what the content of law should be if the law is to be legitimate, a theory that sees legal justification as the opportunity to attract consent. This is more than a book about secrets. It is also a book about the limits of an economic view of law. Ultimately, it is a work in constructive legal theory, one that draws on moral philosophy, sociology, economics, and political theory to develop a new view of legal interpretation and legal morality.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226737782
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 392
Book Description
Does the seller of a house have to tell the buyer that the water is turned off twelve hours a day? Does the buyer of a great quantity of tobacco have to inform the seller that the military blockade of the local port, which had depressed tobacco sales and lowered prices, is about to end? Courts say yes in the first case, no in the second. How can we understand the difference in judgments? And what does it say about whether the psychiatrist should disclose to his patient's girlfriend that the patient wants to kill her? Kim Lane Scheppele answers the question, Which secrets are legal secrets and what makes them so? She challenges the economic theory of law, which argues that judges decide cases in ways that maximize efficiency, and she shows that judges use equality as an important principle in their decisions. In the course of thinking about secrets, Scheppele also explores broader questions about judicial reasoning—how judges find meaning in legal texts and how they infuse every fact summary with the values of their legal culture. Finally, the specific insights about secrecy are shown to be consistent with a general moral theory of law that indicates what the content of law should be if the law is to be legitimate, a theory that sees legal justification as the opportunity to attract consent. This is more than a book about secrets. It is also a book about the limits of an economic view of law. Ultimately, it is a work in constructive legal theory, one that draws on moral philosophy, sociology, economics, and political theory to develop a new view of legal interpretation and legal morality.
Efficiency, Equality and Public Policy
Author: Y. Ng
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0333992776
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 197
Book Description
This book provides compelling arguments for the exclusive concern with efficiency ('a dollar is a dollar') in all specific areas of public economic policy, leaving the objective of equality to be achieved through the general tax/transfer system. Public policies should ultimately maximize the sum of individual welfares which should be individual happiness rather than preferences. Relative-income and environmental disruption effects cause a bias in favour of private spending which is no longer conducive to happiness socially. Welfare can be increased more by higher public spending on research and environmental protection, including the perfection of the techniques of brain stimulation to increase happiness.
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0333992776
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 197
Book Description
This book provides compelling arguments for the exclusive concern with efficiency ('a dollar is a dollar') in all specific areas of public economic policy, leaving the objective of equality to be achieved through the general tax/transfer system. Public policies should ultimately maximize the sum of individual welfares which should be individual happiness rather than preferences. Relative-income and environmental disruption effects cause a bias in favour of private spending which is no longer conducive to happiness socially. Welfare can be increased more by higher public spending on research and environmental protection, including the perfection of the techniques of brain stimulation to increase happiness.