The Power of Economists within the State

The Power of Economists within the State PDF Author: Johan Christensen
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 1503601854
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
The spread of market-oriented reforms has been one of the major political and economic trends of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Governments have, to varying degrees, adopted policies that have led to deregulation: the liberalization of trade; the privatization of state entities; and low-rate, broad-base taxes. Yet some countries embraced these policies more than others. Johan Christensen examines one major contributor to this disparity: the entrenchment of U.S.-trained, neoclassical economists in political institutions the world over. While previous studies have highlighted the role of political parties and production regimes, Christensen uses comparative case studies of New Zealand, Ireland, Norway, and Denmark to show how the influence of economists affected the extent to which each nation adopted market-oriented tax policies. He finds that, in countries where economic experts held powerful positions, neoclassical economics broke through with greater force. Drawing on revealing interviews with 80 policy elites, he examines the specific ways in which economists shaped reforms, relying on an activist approach to policymaking and the perceived utility of their science to drive change.

The Power of Economists within the State

The Power of Economists within the State PDF Author: Johan Christensen
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 1503601854
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Get Book Here

Book Description
The spread of market-oriented reforms has been one of the major political and economic trends of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Governments have, to varying degrees, adopted policies that have led to deregulation: the liberalization of trade; the privatization of state entities; and low-rate, broad-base taxes. Yet some countries embraced these policies more than others. Johan Christensen examines one major contributor to this disparity: the entrenchment of U.S.-trained, neoclassical economists in political institutions the world over. While previous studies have highlighted the role of political parties and production regimes, Christensen uses comparative case studies of New Zealand, Ireland, Norway, and Denmark to show how the influence of economists affected the extent to which each nation adopted market-oriented tax policies. He finds that, in countries where economic experts held powerful positions, neoclassical economics broke through with greater force. Drawing on revealing interviews with 80 policy elites, he examines the specific ways in which economists shaped reforms, relying on an activist approach to policymaking and the perceived utility of their science to drive change.

Economists and the Powerful

Economists and the Powerful PDF Author: Norbert Häring
Publisher: Anthem Press
ISBN: 0857284592
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
"Economists and the Powerful: Convenient Theories, Distorted Facts, Ample Rewards" explores the workings of the modern global economy - an economy in which competition has been corrupted and power has a ubiquitous influence upon economic behavior. Based on empirical and theoretical studies by distinguished economists from both the past and present day, this book argues that the true workings of capitalism are very different from the popular myths voiced in mainstream economics. Offering a closer look at the history of economic doctrines - as well as how economists are incentivized - "Economists and the Powerful" exposes how, when and why the theme of power was erased from the radar screens of mainstream economic analysis - and the influence this subversive removal has had upon the modern financial world. For more information please see the book website: www.economistsandthepowerful.anthempressblog.com/

The Economists' Hour

The Economists' Hour PDF Author: Binyamin Appelbaum
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0316512273
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 473

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Book Description
In this "lively and entertaining" history of ideas (Liaquat Ahamed, The New Yorker), New York Times editorial writer Binyamin Appelbaum tells the story of the people who sparked four decades of economic revolution. Before the 1960s, American politicians had never paid much attention to economists. But as the post-World War II boom began to sputter, economists gained influence and power. In The Economists' Hour, Binyamin Appelbaum traces the rise of the economists, first in the United States and then around the globe, as their ideas reshaped the modern world, curbing government, unleashing corporations and hastening globalization. Some leading figures are relatively well-known, such as Milton Friedman, the elfin libertarian who had a greater influence on American life than any other economist of his generation, and Arthur Laffer, who sketched a curve on a cocktail napkin that helped to make tax cuts a staple of conservative economic policy. Others stayed out of the limelight, but left a lasting impact on modern life: Walter Oi, a blind economist who dictated to his wife and assistants some of the calculations that persuaded President Nixon to end military conscription; Alfred Kahn, who deregulated air travel and rejoiced in the crowded cabins on commercial flights as the proof of his success; and Thomas Schelling, who put a dollar value on human life. Their fundamental belief? That government should stop trying to manage the economy.Their guiding principle? That markets would deliver steady growth, and ensure that all Americans shared in the benefits. But the Economists' Hour failed to deliver on its promise of broad prosperity. And the single-minded embrace of markets has come at the expense of economic equality, the health of liberal democracy, and future generations. Timely, engaging and expertly researched, The Economists' Hour is a reckoning -- and a call for people to rewrite the rules of the market. A Wall Street Journal Business BestsellerWinner of the Porchlight Business Book Award in Narrative & Biography

What Should Economists Do?

What Should Economists Do? PDF Author: James M. Buchanan
Publisher: Indianapolis : Liberty Press
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
This volume is a collection of sixteen essays on three general topics: the methodology of economics, the applicability of economic reasoning to political science and other social sciences, and the relevance of economics as moral philosophy. Several essays are published here for the first time, including "Professor Alchian on Economic Method," "Natural and Artifactual Man," and "Public Choice and Ideology." This book provides relatively easy access to a wide range of work by a moral and legal philosopher, a welfare economist who has consistently defended the primacy of the contractarian ethic, a public finance theorist, and a founder of the burgeoning subdiscipline of public choice. Buchanan's work has spawned a methodological revolution in the way economists and other scholars think about government and government activity. As a measure of recognition for his significant contribution, Dr. Buchanan was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Economics.

Economic Fables

Economic Fables PDF Author: Ariel Rubinstein
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
ISBN: 1906924775
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
"I had the good fortune to grow up in a wonderful area of Jerusalem, surrounded by a diverse range of people: Rabbi Meizel, the communist Sala Marcel, my widowed Aunt Hannah, and the intellectual Yaacovson. As far as I'm concerned, the opinion of such people is just as authoritative for making social and economic decisions as the opinion of an expert using a model." Part memoir, part crash-course in economic theory, this deeply engaging book by one of the world's foremost economists looks at economic ideas through a personal lens. Together with an introduction to some of the central concepts in modern economic thought, Ariel Rubinstein offers some powerful and entertaining reflections on his childhood, family and career. In doing so, he challenges many of the central tenets of game theory, and sheds light on the role economics can play in society at large. Economic Fables is as thought-provoking for seasoned economists as it is enlightening for newcomers to the field.

Building Chicago Economics

Building Chicago Economics PDF Author: Robert Van Horn
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139501712
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 455

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Book Description
Over the past forty years, economists associated with the University of Chicago have won more than one-third of the Nobel prizes awarded in their discipline and have been major influences on American public policy. Building Chicago Economics presents the first collective attempt by social science historians to chart the rise and development of the Chicago School during the decades that followed the Second World War. Drawing on new research in published and archival sources, contributors examine the people, institutions and ideas that established the foundations for the success of Chicago economics and thereby positioned it as a powerful and controversial force in American political and intellectual life.

Thinking Like an Economist

Thinking Like an Economist PDF Author: Elizabeth Popp Berman
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691248885
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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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.

Economics Unmasked

Economics Unmasked PDF Author: Manfred Max-Neef
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0857840320
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
An inspiring outline of a new economics system, where justice, human dignity, compassion and reverence for life are the guiding values. The economic system under which we live not only forces the great majority of humankind to live their lives in indignity and poverty but also threatens all forms of life on Earth. Economics Unmasked presents a cogent critique of the dominant economic system, showing that the theoretical constructions of mainstream economics work mainly to bring about injustice. The merciless onslaught on the global ecosystem of recent decades, brought about by the massive increase in the production of goods and the consequent depletion of nature's reserves, is not a chance property of the economic system. It is a direct result of neoliberal economic thinking, which recognizes value only in material things. The growth obsession is not a mistaken conception that mainstream economists can unlearn, it is inherent in their view of life. But a socio-economic system based on the growth obsession can never be sustainable. This book outlines the foundations of a new economics, where we are not ruled by greed and injustice. Contrary to the absurd assumption of mainstream economists that economics is a value-free science, a new economics must make its values explicit.

Cogs and Monsters

Cogs and Monsters PDF Author: Diane Coyle
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691231036
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
How economics needs to change to keep pace with the twenty-first century and the digital economy Digital technology, big data, big tech, machine learning, and AI are revolutionizing both the tools of economics and the phenomena it seeks to measure, understand, and shape. In Cogs and Monsters, Diane Coyle explores the enormous problems—but also opportunities—facing economics today and examines what it must do to help policymakers solve the world’s crises, from pandemic recovery and inequality to slow growth and the climate emergency. Mainstream economics, Coyle says, still assumes people are “cogs”—self-interested, calculating, independent agents interacting in defined contexts. But the digital economy is much more characterized by “monsters”—untethered, snowballing, and socially influenced unknowns. What is worse, by treating people as cogs, economics is creating its own monsters, leaving itself without the tools to understand the new problems it faces. In response, Coyle asks whether economic individualism is still valid in the digital economy, whether we need to measure growth and progress in new ways, and whether economics can ever be objective, since it influences what it analyzes. Just as important, the discipline needs to correct its striking lack of diversity and inclusion if it is to be able to offer new solutions to new problems. Filled with original insights, Cogs and Monsters offers a road map for how economics can adapt to the rewiring of society, including by digital technologies, and realize its potential to play a hugely positive role in the twenty-first century.

Fifty Major Economists

Fifty Major Economists PDF Author: Steven Pressman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136026967
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 491

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Book Description
An introduction to the life, work and ideas of the people who have shaped the economic landscape from the sixteenth century to the present day. Now in a third edition, it considers how major economists might have viewed challenges such as the continuing economic slump, high unemployment and the sovereign debt problems which face the world today, it includes entries on: • Paul Krugman • Hyman Minsky • John Maynard Keynes • Adam Smith • Irving Fisher • James Buchanan Fifty Major Economists contains brief biographical information on each featured economist and an explanation of their major contributions to economics, along with simple illustrations of their ideas. With reference to the recent work of living economists, guides to the best of recent scholarship and a glossary of terms, Fifty Major Economists is an ideal resource for students of economics. Steven Pressman is Professor of Economics and Finance at Monmouth University. He has published around 120 articles in refereed journals and as book chapters, and has authored, or edited 13 books, including Women in the Age of Economic Transformation, Economics and Its Discontents, Alternative Theories of the State, and Leading Contemporary Economists.