Political Control of the Economy
Political Control of the Economy

Author: Edward R. Tufte

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 1978

Total Pages: 188

ISBN-13: 0691021805

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Speculations about the effects of politics on economic life have a long and vital tradition, but few efforts have been made to determine the precise relationship between them. Edward Tufte, a political scientist who covered the 1976 Presidential election for Newsweek, seeks to do just that. His sharp analyses and astute observations lead to an eye-opening view of the impact of political life on the national economy of America and other capitalist democracies. The analysis demonstrates how politicians, political parties, and voters decide who gets what, when, and how in the economic arena. A nation's politics, it is argued, shape the most important aspects of economic life--inflation, unemployment, income redistribution, the growth of government, and the extent of central economic control. Both statistical data and case studies (based on interviews and Presidential documents) are brought to bear on four topics. They are: 1) the political manipulation of the economy in election years, 2) the new international electoral-economic cycle, 3) the decisive role of political leaders and parties in shaping macroeconomic outcomes, and 4) the response of the electorate to changing economic conditions. Finally, the book clarifies a central question in political economy: How can national economic policy be conducted in both a democratic and a competent fashion?

The Political Economy of Expertise
The Political Economy of Expertise

Author: Kevin Esterling

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Published: 2009-12-10

Total Pages: 301

ISBN-13: 047202390X

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The Political Economy of Expertise is a carefully argued examination of how legislatures use expert research and testimony. Kevin Esterling demonstrates that interest groups can actually help the legislative process by encouraging Congress to assess research and implement well-informed policies. More than mere touts for the interests of Washington insiders, these groups encourage Congress to enact policies that are likely to succeed while avoiding those that have too great of a risk of failure. The surprising result is greater legislative efficiency. The Political Economy of Expertise illustrates that this system actually favors effective and informed decision making, thereby increasing the likelihood that new policies will benefit the American public. Kevin M. Esterling is Assistant Professor at the University of California, Riverside.

The Controlled Economy (Routledge Revivals)
The Controlled Economy (Routledge Revivals)

Author: James E. Meade

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012-11-12

Total Pages: 379

ISBN-13: 1136258671

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First published in 1971 this volume applies the tools of static and of dynamic analysis (outlined in The Stationary Economy and The Growing Economy) to the control of a dynamic economy. This involves a discussion of subjects such as the theory of indicative planning, and the planning by the government of its monetary, fiscal, and incomes policies for the purposes of the short-run stabilization of the economy and of ensuring the best long-run use of the community’s resources. Special emphasis is laid on the planning of such policies in conditions in which many future events remain inevitably uncertain. This book considers these issues in relation to a competitive, free-enterprise economy; and little or no reference is made to problems of monopoly or of distinctions between social and private costs and benefits, due to indivisibilities and externalities in economic life.

Constitutional Environments and Economic Growth
Constitutional Environments and Economic Growth

Author: Gerald W. Scully

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2014-07-14

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 1400862833

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In this provocative work, Gerald Scully develops and empirically tests a theory about how a nation's constitutional setting affects its economic growth. Modern growth theory links the rise in the standard of living to capital formation, both physical and human, and to technological progress, and development economists continue to believe that the transformation of the less developed world cannot occur without massive government control of the economy. Scully, on the other hand, maintains that material advancement is as much affected by the choice of the economic, legal, and political institutions under which people live and work as it is by resource endowment and technological progress. Nothing in the neoclassical theory of growth considers the "rules of the game" under which capital is accumulated and innovation is made. Redressing this neglect, Scully proposes ways of measuring the economic, civil, and political freedom within a society's institutional framework, and he reveals that freedom, or the lack thereof, powerfully and demonstrably influences not only economic progress but also income distribution. Politically open societies grow at nearly three times the rate of those where freedom is more circumscribed, and they also have a more equitable distribution of income. Finally, Scully measures the effect of the size of the state on economic progress, showing that the larger the amount of government expenditures out of gross domestic product, the lower the rate of economic progress. Originally published in 1992. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Democracy and Efficiency in the Economic Enterprise
Democracy and Efficiency in the Economic Enterprise

Author: Ugo Pagano

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2002-03-11

Total Pages: 441

ISBN-13: 1134800487

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The collapse of central planning was hailed as evidence of the economic and moral superiority of capitalism over any possible alternative. The essays in this book challenge that claim. The case for more democratic forms of enterprise management is considered from a variety of viewpoints. One chapter deals with the philosophical justification for enterprise democracy. The remaining chapters are devoted to the question of efficiency, which has been central to economic debates about ownership and control. The orthodox belief amongst economists is that any shift to more democratic forms of enterprise control would be unworkable. The essays in this book provide a thorough theoretical and empirical critique of this orthodoxy.

Incentives and Political Economy
Incentives and Political Economy

Author: Jean-Jacques Laffont

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2000-03-30

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 0198294247

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Mainstream economics has recognized only recently the necessity to incorporate political constraints into economic analysis intended for policy advisors. Incentives and Political Economy uses recent advances in contract theory to build a normative approach to constitutional design in economic environments.The first part of the book remains in the tradition of benevolent constitutional design with complete contracting. It treats politicians as informed supervisors and studies how the Constitution should control them, in particular to avoid capture by interest groups. Incentive theories for the separation of powers or systems of checks and balances are developed.The second part of the book recognises the incompleteness of the constitutional contract which leaves discretion to the politicans selected by the electoral process. Asymmetric information associates information rents with economic policies and the political game becomes a game of costly redistribution of those rents. Professor Laffont investigates the trade-offs between an inflexible constitution which leaves little discretion to politicians but sacrifices ex post efficiency and a constitutionweighted towards ex post efficiency but also giving considerable discretion to politicians to pursue private agendas.The final part of the book reconsiders the modeling of collusion given asymmetric information. It proposes a new approach to characterizing incentives constraints for group behaviour when asymmetric information is non-verifiable. This provides a methodology to characterise the optimal constitutional response to activities of interest groups and to study the design of any institution in which group behavior is important.

The Political Economy of Dictatorship
The Political Economy of Dictatorship

Author: Ronald Wintrobe

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2000-09-25

Total Pages: 404

ISBN-13: 9780521794497

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Although much of the world still lives today, as always, under dictatorship, the behaviour of these regimes and of their leaders often appears irrational and mysterious. In The Political Economy of Dictatorship, Ronald Wintrobe uses rational choice theory to model dictatorships: their strategies for accumulating power, the constraints on their behavior, and why they are often more popular than is commonly accepted. The book explores both the politics and the economics of dictatorships, and the interaction between them. The questions addressed include: What determines the repressiveness of a regime? Can political authoritarianism be 'good' for the economy? After the fall, who should be held responsible for crimes against human rights? The book contains many applications, including chapters on Nazi Germany, Soviet Communism, South Africa under apartheid, the ancient Roman Empire and Pinochet's Chile. It also provides a guide to the policies which should be followed by the democracies towards dictatorships.

Ethics, Efficiency, and the Market
Ethics, Efficiency, and the Market

Author: Allen E. Buchanan

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 1985

Total Pages: 152

ISBN-13: 9780847673964

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This clear and incisive book provides the ideal critical synthesis of the best thinking on one of the most important moral, social, and political issues of our time: the role of the market as a basic institution of social organization. It articulates the two main types of arguments for and against the market--efficiency arguments and ethical arguments--and examines their conceptual, empirical, and moral presuppositions, as well as their implications for capitalist, socialist, and market-socialist economic arragements. Among the many striking features of the argument is Buchanan's contention that the allegedly purely technical notions of efficiency current in the social science literature rest on unexamined ethical assumptions and that the ethical arguments offered by philosophers and political theorists depend upon unexamined assumptions about efficiency. Buchanan also contends that the problem of relativism for judgments comparing social systems is no less serious for efficiency claims than for ethical claims. This short, accessible book will raise the quality of the debate in both philosophy and the social sciences. It is an ideal introduction to its subject for students in political and social theory, economics, comparative politics, and philosophy.