Policy and Choice

Policy and Choice PDF Author: William J. Congdon
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815704984
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Argues that public finance--the study of the government's role in economics--should incorporate principles from behavior economics and other branches of psychology.

Policy and Choice

Policy and Choice PDF Author: William J. Congdon
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815704984
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Argues that public finance--the study of the government's role in economics--should incorporate principles from behavior economics and other branches of psychology.

Economic Crisis and Policy Choice

Economic Crisis and Policy Choice PDF Author: Joan M. Nelson
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 9780691023106
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
The acute economic pressures of the 1980s have forced virtually all of Latin America and Africa and some countries in Asia into painful austerity programs and difficult economic reforms. Scholars have intensively analyzed the economics of this situation, but they have given much less attention to the political forces involved. In this volume a number of eminent contributors analyze the politics of adjustment in thirteen countries and nineteen governments, drawing comparisons not only across the full set of cases but also within clusters selected to clarify specific issues. Why do some governments respond promptly to signs of economic trouble, while others muddle indecisively for years? Why do some confine their response to temporary macroeconomic measures, while others adopt broader, even sweeping, programs of reform? What leads some countries to experiment with heterodox approaches, while most, however reluctantly, pursue orthodox courses? Why, confronted with intense political protest, have some governments persisted while others have altered or abandoned course? The answers to these questions are political, not economic, and they are examined here by Thomas M. Callaghy, Stephan Haggard, Miles Kahler, Robert R. Kauman, Joan M. Nelson, and Barbara Stallings.

Public Choice Theory and the Illusion of Grand Strategy

Public Choice Theory and the Illusion of Grand Strategy PDF Author: Richard Hanania
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 100051403X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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Book Description
This book argues that while the US president makes foreign policy decisions based largely on political pressures, it is concentrated interests that shape the incentive structures in which he and other top officials operate. The author identifies three groups most likely to be influential: government contractors, the national security bureaucracy, and foreign governments. This book shows that the public choice perspective is superior to a theory of grand strategy in explaining the most important aspects of American foreign policy, including the war on terror, policy toward China, and the distribution of US forces abroad. Arguing that American leaders are selected to respond to public opinion, not necessarily according to their ability to formulate and execute long-terms plans, the author shows how mass attitudes are easily malleable in the domain of foreign affairs due to ignorance with regard to the topic, the secrecy that surrounds national security issues, the inherent complexity of the issues involved, and most importantly, clear cases of concentrated interests. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of American Studies, Foreign Policy Analysis and Global Governance.

Expert Advice for Policy Choice

Expert Advice for Policy Choice PDF Author: Duncan MacRaeJr.
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
ISBN: 9781589013179
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 452

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Book Description
Economic reasoning has thus far dominated the field of public policy analysis. This new introduction to the field posits that policy analysis should have both a broader interdisciplinary base—including criteria from such fields as political science, sociology, law, and philosophy, as well as economics—and also a broader audience in order to foster democratic debate. To achieve these goals, MacRae and Whittington have organized their textbook around the construction of decision matrices using multiple criteria, exploring the uses of the decision matrix formulation more fully than other texts. They describe how to set up the matrix, fill in cells and combine criteria, and use it as an aid for decision making. They show how ethical assessment of the affects that alternatives have on various parties differs from political analysis, and then they extend the use of the decision matrix to consider alternatives by affected parties, periods of time, or combined factors. The authors also thoughtfully address the role of expert advice in the policy process, widening the scope of the field to describe a complex system for the creation and use of knowledge in a democracy. An extended case study of HIV/AIDS policy follows each chapter (in installments), immediately illustrating the application of the material. The book also contains a glossary. Expert Advice for Policy Choice provides a new basis for graduate education in public policy analysis and can also serve as a text in planning, evaluation research, or public administration. In addition, it will be of interest to students and professionals wishing to aid policy choice who work in such fields as sociology, political science, psychology, public health, and social work.

Institutional Constraints and Policy Choice

Institutional Constraints and Policy Choice PDF Author: James C. Clingermayer
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791490947
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
Institutional arrangements constitute the "rules of the game" for any civil and political society. To understand urban politics and policy making, including issues dealing with economic development, zoning, constituency representation, government borrowing, and service contract decisions, discovering institutional regularities is key. To achieve this the authors combine older institutional approaches emphasizing formal structure and governance organizations with newer approaches and transaction cost theory. Institutional Constraints and Policy Choice contends that institutional arrangements both shape and are shaped by human behavior, and when combined with contextual factors and the uncertainty associated with leadership turnover provide the basis of understanding how decisions are made at the level of local government.

Getting Choice Right

Getting Choice Right PDF Author: Julian R. Betts
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0815797974
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
This second volume from the National Working Commission on Choice in K-12 Education examines the connections between school choice and the goals of equity and efficiency in education. The contributors—distinguished university professors, high school administrators, and scholars from research institutions around the country—assess the efficiency of the educational system, analyzing efforts to boost average achievement. Their discussion of equity focuses on the reduction of racial and religious segregation in education, as well as measures to ensure that "no child is left behind." The result is an authoritative and balanced look at how to maximize benefits while minimizing risks in the implementation of school choice. The National Working Commission on Choice in K-12 Education was established to explore how choice works and to examine how communities interested in the potential benefits of new school options could obtain them while avoiding choice's potential harms. In addition to the editors, commissioners include Paul T. Hill and Dan Goldhaber (University of Washington), David Ferrero (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation), Brian P. Gill and Laura Hamilton (Rand), Jeffrey R. Henig (Teachers College, Columbia University), Frederick M. Hess (American Enterprise Institute), Stephen Macedo (Princeton University), Lawrence Rosenstock (High Tech High, San Diego), Charles Venegoni (Civitas Schools in Chicago), Janet Weiss (University of Michigan), and Patrick J. Wolf (Georgetown University).

Policy Analysis and Public Choice

Policy Analysis and Public Choice PDF Author: William A. Niskanen
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 9781782543244
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 456

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Book Description
A selection of essays examining economic policy and politics in the United States.

Consumer Choice

Consumer Choice PDF Author: Christopher T. Erb
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 135152626X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Book Description
"The United States health care system is unique among those of other developed economies--most significantly because health care is not a legal right in the United States. Instead, it is considered an employee benefit and a privilege, unless one is over age 65 or of low income. The United States is the only developed country without some form of universal health care.Contributors to this volume represent an interdisciplinary group of academics, practitioners, and service delivery providers. The volume begins with a general examination of the politics of health and social welfare in the United States. It then focuses on the importance and role of consumers in the U.S. economy, and dilemmas associated with promoting consumer choice. It explores policy issues and challenges in three specific areas: controlling health care costs and protecting choice with respect to health care, the major challenges to informed choice in health care, and barriers to effective health care service delivery. Contributors explore changes and reforms that have been introduced within public and privately financed systems over the past ten years.Consumer Choice examines in a timely and efficient manner critical social and health policy issues--nationally and internationally--and the major challenges that face informed choice in health care and social policy. Policymakers, health care officials, and medical personnel in the United States and other countries will find this volume highly informative."

Imperfect Alternatives

Imperfect Alternatives PDF Author: Neil K. Komesar
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226450889
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
Indeed, as important as determining our social goals is deciding which institution is best equipped to implement them - the market, the political process, or the adjudicative process.

Ambiguity and Choice in Public Policy

Ambiguity and Choice in Public Policy PDF Author: Nikolaos Zahariadis
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
ISBN: 9781589012363
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
Zahariadis offers a theory that explains policymaking when "ambiguity" is present—a state in which there are many ways, often irreconcilable, of thinking about an issue. Expanding and extending John Kingdon's influential "multiple streams" model that explains agenda setting, Zahariadis argues that manipulation, the bending of ideas, process, and beliefs to get what you want out of the policy process, is the key to understanding the dynamics of policymaking in conditions of ambiguity. He takes one of the major theories of public policy to the next step in three different ways: he extends it to a different form of government (parliamentary democracies, where Kingdon looked only at what he called the United States's presidential "organized anarchy" form of government); he examines the entire policy formation process, not just agenda setting; and he applies it to foreign as well as domestic policy. This book combines theory with cases to illuminate policymaking in a variety of modern democracies. The cases cover economic policymaking in Britain, France, and Germany, foreign policymaking in Greece, all compared to the U.S. (where the model was first developed), and an innovative computer simulation of the policy process.