Best of
Economics

1993

Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community: Eight Essays


Wendell Berry - 1993
    With wisdom and clear, ringing prose, he tackles head-on some of the most difficult problems confronting us near the end of the twentieth century––problems we still face today. Berry elucidates connections between sexual brutality and economic brutality, and the role of art and free speech. He forcefully addresses America's unabashed pursuit of self-liberation, which he says is "still the strongest force now operating in our society." As individuals turn away from their community, they conform to a "rootless and placeless monoculture of commercial expectations and products," buying into the very economic system that is destroying the earth, our communities, and all they represent.

The Ecology of Commerce


Paul Hawken - 1993
    A visionary new program that businesses can follow to help restore the planet.

Why Government Is the Problem


Milton Friedman - 1993
    Friedman discusses a government system that is no longer controlled by "we, the people." Instead of Lincoln's government "of the people, by the people, and for the people," we now have a government "of the people, by the bureaucrats, for the bureaucrats," including the elected representatives who have become bureaucrats.

Is Reality Optional?: And Other Essays


Thomas Sowell - 1993
    Sowell challenges all the assumptions of contemporary liberalism on issues ranging from the economy to race to education in this collection of controversial essays, and captures his thoughts on politics, race, and common sense with a section at the end for thought-provoking quotes.

Time, Labor, and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation of Marx's Critical Theory


Moishe Postone - 1993
    He calls into question many of the presuppositions of traditional Marxist analyses and offers new interpretations of Marx's central arguments. These interpretations lead him to a very different analysis of the nature and problems of capitalism and provide the basis for a critique of "actually existing socialism." According to this new interpretation, Marx identifies the central core of the capitalist system with an impersonal form of social domination generated by labor itself and not simply with market mechanisms and private property. Proletarian labor and the industrial production process are characterized as expressions of domination rather than as means of human emancipation. This reformulation relates the form of economic growth and the structure of social labor in modern society to the alienation and domination at the heart of capitalism. It provides the foundation for a critical social theory that is more adequate to late twentieth-century capitalism.

The Economics and Ethics of Private Property: Studies in Political Economy and Philosophy


Hans-Hermann Hoppe - 1993
    Whether the following studies deal with economic topics, such as employment, interest, money, banking, business cycles, taxes, public goods, or growth; with philosophical problems as the foundations of know ledge, and of economics and ethics in particular; or the reconstruction and theoretical explanation of historical and sociological phenomena such as exploitation, the rise and fall of civilizations, international politics, war, imperialism, and the role of ideas and ideological movements in the course of social evolution - each ultimately contributes to but one conclusion: The right to private property is an indisputably valid, absolute principle of ethics and the basis for continuous 'optimal' economic progress. To rise from the ruins of socialism and overcome the stagnation of the Western welfare states, nothing will suffice but the uncompromizing privatization of all socialized, that is, government, property and the establishment of a contractual society based on the recognition of the absoluteness of private property rights. *** In writing the following studies I received help from many sides. Special thanks go to my wife Margaret, who again took on the task of de Germanizing my English; to Llewellyn H."

The Prosperous Few and the Restless Many (Real Story)


Noam Chomsky - 1993
    These wide-ranging interviews, from 1992 and 1993, cover everything from Bosnia and Somalia to biotechnology and nonviolence, with particular attention to the "Third Worldization" of the United States.

Post-Capitalist Society


Peter F. Drucker - 1993
    This searching and incisive analysis of the major world transformation now taking place shows how it will affect society,economics, business, and politics and explains how we are movingfrom a society based on capital, land, and labor to a society whoseprimary source is knowIedge and whose key structure is theorganization.

Requiem for Marx


Yuri N. Maltsev - 1993
    This book is the antidote, covering the whole history of this nutty and dangerous system of thoughtIt begins by an alternatively hilarious and tragic introduction by the editor Yuri Maltsev. He describes in vivid detail life in the Soviet Union, which, he points out contrary to myth, was indeed an attempt to realize Marx's vision. Of course the system moved away from the strict doctrine, lest everyone in the country be reduced to the most primitive possible economic conditions. He describes a society in which nothing works, ethics and morals collapse, and absurdities abound in every aspect of daily life. It is a priceless first-hand account.Next come sweeping essays by David Gordon and Hans-Hermann Hoppe that get into the guts of the Marxian system and show where it went wrong from both a philosophical and economic perspective. Hoppe in particular here shows how Marx took classical liberal doctrine on the state and misapplied it in ways that contradicted all logic and experience.Gary North provides a devastating look at Marx the man, while Ralph Raico zeros in on the Marxian doctrine of class. Finally, and as a triumphant finish, Rothbard offers a wholesale revision of the basis of Marxism. It was not economics, he says. It was the longing for a universal upheaval to overthrow all things we know about the world and replace it with a crazed fantasy based secular/religious longings. Rothbard finds all this in the unknown writings of Marx and his post-millennial predecessors in the history of ideas.This book made its first appearance in 1992, and has been out of print all these years. It is fantastic to have it back and available in this very affordable edition. (Mises.org)

The Wisdom of Henry Hazlitt


Henry Hazlitt - 1993
    A collection of some of the most incisive Hazlitt articles and essays prepared by the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE).

Against the Market: Political Economy, Market Socialism & the Marxist Critique


David McNally - 1993
    He ranges from Adam Smith's attempt to reconcile moral philosophy with market economics to Malthus's reformulation of Smith's political economy which made it possible to justify poverty as a moral necessity. Smith's economic theory was also the source of an attempt to construct a critique of capitalism derived from his conception of free and equal exchange governed by natural price. This Smithian forerunner of today's market socialism sought to reform the market without abolishing the social relations on which it was based. McNally explores this tradition sympathetically, but exposes its fatal flaws.The book concludes with an incisive consideration of efforts by writers such as Alec Nove to construct a "feasible" model of market socialism. McNally shows these efforts are still plagued by the failure of early Smithian socialism to come to grips with the social foundations of the market, the commodification of labor-power which is the key to market regulation of the economy. The results, he argues, are neither socialist nor workable.

Marketing Places


Philip Kotler - 1993
    Philip Kotler, Donald Haider, and Irving Rein argue that thousands of "places" -- cities, states, and nations -- are in crisis, and can no longer rely on national industrial policies, such as federal matching funds, as a promise of jobs and protection. When trouble strikes, places resort to various palliatives such as chasing grants from state or federal sources, bidding for smokestack industries, or building convention centers and exotic attractions. The authors show instead that places must, like any market-driven business, become attractive "products" by improving their industrial base and communicating their special qualities more effectively to their target markets. From studies of cities and nations throughout the world, Kotler, Haider, and Rein offer a systematic analysis of why so many places have fallen on hard times, and make recommendations on what can be done to revitalize a place's economy. They show how "place wars" -- battles for Japanese factories, government projects, Olympic Games, baseball team franchises, convention business, and other economic prizes -- are often misguided and end in wasted money and effort. The hidden key to vigorous economic development, the authors argue, is strategic marketing of places by rebuilding infrastructure, creating a skilled labor force, stimulating local business entrepreneurship and expansion, developing strong public/private partnerships, identifying and attracting "place compatible" companies and industries, creating distinctive local attractions, building a service-friendly culture, and promoting these advantages effectively.Strategic marketing of places requires a deep understanding of how "place buyers" -- tourists, new residents, factories, corporate headquarters, investors -- make their place decisions. With this understanding, "place sellers" -- economic development agencies, tourist promotion agencies, mayor's offices -- can take the necessary steps to compete aggressively for place buyers. This straightforward guide for effectively marketing places will be the framework for economic development in the 1990s and beyond.

Competition Law


Richard Whish - 1993
    The author's authoritative treatment of the area is matched by a lively and easy-to-follow writing style, making this book an indispensable resource for undergraduate and postgraduate law and economics students, as well as for practitioners and officials involved in competition law.Explaining the economic context within which competition law operates in the UK, EC and internationally, Whish looks at the constituent parts of the law and analyses how they affect particularly commercial phenomena. Key aspects are examined in detail, including mergers, horizontal and vertical agreements, the Abuse of Dominance, Intellectual Property and the obligations of Member States under the EC. The book also scrutinizes fundamental Acts and Articles - Competition Act 1998; Enterprise Act 2002; Articles 81 and 82 - providing readers with context, consequences and an overview of how these are applied in practice. This book is essential reading for students, practitioners and officials seeking a respected, reliable, intelligent and critical approach to competition law.This edition-Contains new text on the EC Merger Regulation and the Technology Transfer Regulation of 2004-Reflects upon the Commission's discussion paper on Article 82-Provides a wider picture of the EC Modernization Regulation-Offers a fuller discussion of UK market investigation and merger control now that the Enterprise Act has been in force for four years Online Resource CentreThe Online Resource centre that accompanies this edition of the book contains articles written by the author, forthcoming chapters from the book, and updates to the law post-publication.

Living Within Limits


Garrett Hardin - 1993
    With such startling assertions, Hardin has cut a swathe through the field of ecology for decades, winning a reputation as a fearless and original thinker. A prominent biologist, ecological philosopher, and keen student of human population control, Hardin now offers the finest summation of his work to date, with an eloquent argument for accepting the limits of the earth's resources--and the hard choices we must make to live within them. In Living Within Limits, Hardin focuses on the neglected problem of overpopulation, making a forceful case for dramatically changing the way we live in and manage our world. Our world itself, he writes, is in the dilemma of the lifeboat: it can only hold a certain number of people before itsinks--not everyone can be saved. The old idea of progress and limitless growth misses the point that the earth (and each part of it) has a limited carrying capacity; sentimentality should not cloud our ability to take necessary steps to limit population. But Hardin refutes the notion that goodwilland voluntary restraints will be enough. Instead, nations where population is growing must suffer the consequences alone. Too often, he writes, we operate on the faulty principle of shared costs matched with private profits. In Hardin's famous essay, The Tragedy of the Commons, he showed how avillage common pasture suffers from overgrazing because each villager puts as many cattle on it as possible--since the costs of grazing are shared by everyone, but the profits go to the individual. The metaphor applies to global ecology, he argues, making a powerful case for closed borders and anend to immigration from poor nations to rich ones. The production of human beings is the result of very localized human actions; corrective action must be local....Globalizing the 'population problem' would only ensure that it would never be solved. Hardin does not shrink from the startlingimplications of his argument, as he criticizes the shipment of food to overpopulated regions and asserts that coercion in population control is inevitable. But he also proposes a free flow of information across boundaries, to allow each state to help itself. The time-honored practice of pollute and move on is no longer acceptable, Hardin tells us. We now fill the globe, and we have no where else to go. In this powerful book, one of our leading ecological philosophers points out the hard choices we must make--and the solutions we have beenafraid to consider.

The Cosmotheandric Experience: Emerging Religious Consciousness


Raimon Panikkar - 1993
    For him, our old habits of mind have been dying for several generations, outmoded by the arrival of a new way of intuiting reality. Panikkar calls this intuition the cosmotheandric experience. This cosmotheandric experience enables us today to enter into the hermeneutic circles that for thousands of years have hindered persons of different faith traditions from truly understanding the central experience of "other" religious families. The term denotes an intertwining of the "cosmic, " the "human, " and the "divine" - all interpenetrating one another as different dimensions of the Whole.

Against Capitalism


David Schweickart - 1993
    This book argues that Economic Democracy, a competitive economy of democratically run enterprises that replaces capitalist financial markets with more suitable institutions, will be more efficient than capitalism, more rational in its growth, more democratic, more egalitarian, and less alienating.Against Capitalism is an ambitious book, drawing on philosophical analysis, economic theory, and considerable empirical evidence to advance its controversial thesis. It examines both conservative and liberal forms of capitalism; it compares Economic Democracy to other models of socialism; and it considers the transition to Economic Democracy from advanced capitalist societies, from economies built on the Soviet model, and from conditions of underdevelopment. The book concludes with some unconventional reflections on historical materialism, ideal communism, and the future of Marxism.

Hemp: Lifeline to the Future: The Unexpected Answer for Our Environmental and Economic Recovery


Chris Conrad - 1993
    It looks at detailed industrial applications of cannabis hemp, the medical and nutritional uses of the plants flowers and seeds, and the controversies around marijuana. A scholarly work that captures your attention and holds your interest, this book has been the springboard for many businesses to get up and going in the hemp field, and has inspired countless acts of activism in the cannabis reform movement. A veritable encyclopedia of hemp trivia and historical detail, this book will help you understand why so many people are energized by the promise of hemp. Essential reading for anyone who has ever wondered how past societies were able to survive without modern products, and for anyone who wonders how future generations will be able to survive after the conflagration of the petrochemical era. It dedicates much attention to scientific and sociological studies that shatter the myth of marijuana as the "killer weed," and goes behind the scenes to view the manipulations by which this plant, probably the most versatile and valuable resource on the face of the earth, was demonized and banned under the misnomer "marijuana". Warning: This book might change your life, because once you learn the facts about hemp there is no returning to ignorance. Give a copy to your library, your elected officials, your parents, children, teachers: Anybody who cares about what is wrong with America today. The second edition of the book is 8-1/2 by 5-1/2 inches and over 300 pages, with a title page printed on hemp paper. It is in black and white and illustrated with diagrams to explain the text. The soft bound cover is varnished, with three color illustration. The work includes footnotes throughout, an index and an appendix.

Persistent Inequalities: Wage Disparity Under Capitalist Competition


Howard Botwinick - 1993
    In contrast, this work uses a classical Marxist analysis of real capitalist competition to show that substantial patterns of wage disparity can persist despite high levels of competition and significant degrees of labor mobility. Indeed, Howard Botwinick argues in this provocative work that capitalist competition often militates against the equalization of wage rates.An analytical strength of this new approach is that critical institutionalist insights concerning the impact of unions and industry structure can now be rigorously incorporated within a highly competitive framework. Thus, this book provides unorthodox economists with a robust alternative to efficiency wage theories, which are once again suggesting that unions have little long-term effect on the inter-industry wage structure. In addition to providing the basis for a new explanation for the persistence of race and gender inequality, the work has important implications for effective trade union strategies in an increasingly competitive environment. Contrary to corporate calls for team production systems and other forms of labor-management cooperation, Botwinick argues that labor's most effective strategy is to build wider levels of militant union organization that can once again take wages and working conditions out of capitalist competition.

A Theory of Incentives in Procurement and Regulation


Jean-Jacques Laffont - 1993
    It makes a difficult and large literature of the new regulatory economics accessible to the average graduate student, while offering insights into the theoretical ideas and stratagems not available elsewhere. Based on their pathbreaking work in the application of principal-agent theory to questions of regulation, Laffont and Tirole develop a synthetic approach, with a particular, though not exclusive, focus on the regulation of natural monopolies such as military contractors, utility companies, and transportation authorities.The book's clear and logical organization begins with an introduction that summarizes regulatory practices, recounts the history of thought that led to the emergence of the new regulatory economics, sets up the basic structure of the model, and previews the economic questions tackled in the next seventeen chapters. The structure of the model developed in the introductory chapter remains the same throughout subsequent chapters, ensuring both stability and consistency. The concluding chapter discusses important areas for future work in regulatory economics. Each chapter opens with a discussion of the economic issues, an informal description of the applicable model, and an overview of the results and intuition. It then develops the formal analysis, including sufficient explanations for those with little training in information economics or game theory. Bibliographic notes provide a historical perspective of developments in the area and a description of complementary research. Detailed proofs are given of all major conclusions, making the book valuable as a source of modern research techniques. There is a large set of review problems at the end of the book.

An Inquiry Into Well-Being and Destitution


Partha Dasgupta - 1993
    Dasgupta's aim here is to offer a description of destitution as it occurs among rural populations of the poor countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America; to give an account of the forces at work which perpetuate destitution, and to offer prescriptions for both the public and private spheres of life.A central concern of the author has been to reconcile theoretical considerations with the empirical evidence that has been obtained in the several disciplines this work encompasses, including anthropology, demography, ecology, geography, and philosophy. The entire discussion is designed to provide a philosophy for human well-being that can guide public policy in poor countries. Therefore, the role of the State, of communities, of households, and of individuals is studied in considerable detail.The author reveals an empirical link between greater political and civil liberties and improvements in life expectancy at birth, national income per capita, and infant survival rates. He identifies patterns of asset redistribution that promote economic growth by raising labor productivity, and argues that democratic participation in the design of public policies is not only intrinsically valuable, but has strong instrumental virtues: it allows privately held information to be put into effective use. Dasgupta presents evidence to show that significant reductions in military budgets would free the resources needed for the satisfaction of citizens' basic economic needs, and he provides guidance for the motivation and necessary focus of governments. He also looks at the allocation of food, work, health care, education, and income across genders, age groups, and orders of birth. He explores the findings of nutritionists on the link between food needs and work capacity, and develops a language to allow the environment to be included in social policies and calculations. By covering an unprecedented range of material, An Inquiry into Well-Being and Destitution becomes required reading for all those concerned with the human situation and the plight of the destitute.

The Catholic Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism


Michael Novak - 1993
    Novak argues that a 100-year debate within the Catholic Church has yielded a richer and more humane vision of capitalism than that described in Weber's Protestant Ethic.

The Wealthy Banker's Wife: The Assault On Equality In Canada


Linda McQuaig - 1993
    

Economic Principals : Masters and Mavericks of Modern Economics


David Warsh - 1993
    Other economic analysts and social scientists are also covered.

Value in Ethics and Economics


Elizabeth S. Anderson - 1993
    This account of the plurality of values thus offers a new approach, beyond welfare economics and traditional theories of justice, for assessing the ethical limitations of the market. In this light, Anderson discusses several contemporary controversies involving the proper scope of the market, including commercial surrogate motherhood, privatization of public services, and the application of cost-benefit analysis to issues of environmental protection.

Foundations of Corporate Success: How Business Strategies Add Value


John Kay - 1993
    How did BMW recover from the verge of bankruptcy to become one of the Europe's strongest companies? Why did Saatchi and Saatchi's global strategy bring the company to its knees? Why has Philips outstanding record in innovation not been translated into success in the market? What can be learned from the marriage contract about the conduct of commercial negotiations? These are some of the questions addressed as John Kay asks What makes a business successful?

Beyond Economic Man: Feminist Theory and Economics


Marianne A. Ferber - 1993
    In these original essays, the authors suggest that the discipline of economics could be improved by freeing itself from masculine biases.Beyond Economic Man raises questions about the discipline not because economics is too objective but because it is not objective enough. The contributors—nine economists, a sociologist, and a philosopher—discuss the extent to which gender has influenced both the range of subjects economists have studied and the way in which scholars have conducted their studies. They investigate, for example, how masculine concerns underlie economists' concentration on market as opposed to household activities and their emphasis on individual choice to the exclusion of social constraints on choice. This focus on masculine interests, the contributors contend, has biased the definition and boundaries of the discipline, its central assumptions, and its preferred rhetoric and methods. However, the aim of this book is not to reject current economic practices, but to broaden them, permitting a fuller understanding of economic phenomena. These essays examine current economic practices in the light of a feminist understanding of gender differences as socially constructed rather than based on essential male and female characteristics. The authors use this concept of gender, along with feminist readings of rhetoric and the history of science, as well as postmodernist theory and personal experience as economists, to analyze the boundaries, assumptions, and methods of neoclassical, socialist, and institutionalist economics. The contributors are Rebecca M. Blank, Paula England, Marianne A. Ferber, Nancy Folbre, Ann L. Jennings, Helen E. Longino, Donald N. McCloskey, Julie A. Nelson, Robert M. Solow, Diana Strassmann, and Rhonda M. Williams.

Modeling Monetary Economies


Bruce Champ - 1993
    By teaching from first principles, the authors aim to instruct students not only in the monetary policies and institutions that exist today in the United States but also in what policies and institutions may or should exist tomorrow and elsewhere. The text builds on a simple, clear monetary model and applies this framework consistently to a wide variety of monetary questions. The authors have added in this second edition new material on speculative attacks on currencies, social security, currency boards, central banking alternatives, the payments system, and the Lucas model of price surprises. Discussions of many topics have been extended, presentations of data greatly expanded, and new exercises added.

Macro Markets: Creating Institutions for Managing Society's Largest Economic Risks


Robert J. Shiller - 1993
    The new markets could diminish the impact of international economic fluctuations and reduce the inequality of wealth. He proposes new international markets for claims on national incomes, on components and aggregates of national incomes, and for property such as real estate, and argues that these markets might dwarf our stock markets in their activity and significance. He challenges the widespread presumption that any such new market would be infeasible, by offering solutions to technical problems of measurement and settlement. There are proposals for implementing markets in perpetual claims and a substantial section on the construction of index numbers for use in settlement in the new markets.

Advances in Behavioral Finance


Richard H. Thaler - 1993
    Nevertheless, as the increasingly exquisite and detailed financial data demonstrate, financial markets often fail to behave as they should if trading were truly dominated by the fully rational investors that populate financial theories. These markets anomalies have spawned a new approach to finance, one which as editor Richard Thaler puts it, "entertains the possibility that some agents in the economy behave less than fully rationally some of the time." Advances in Behavioral Finance collects together twenty-one recent articles that illustrate the power of this approach. These papers demonstrate how specific departures from fully rational decision making by individual market agents can provide explanations of otherwise puzzling market phenomena. To take several examples, Werner De Bondt and Thaler find an explanation for superior price performance of firms with poor recent earnings histories in the tendencies of investors to overreact to recent information. Richard Roll traces the negative effects of corporate takeovers on the stock prices of the acquiring firms to the overconfidence of managers, who fail to recognize the contributions of chance to their past successes. Andrei Shleifer and Robert Vishny show how the difficulty of establishing a reliable reputation for correctly assessing the value of long term capital projects can lead investment analysis, and hence corporate managers, to focus myopically on short term returns. As a testing ground for assessing the empirical accuracy of behavioral theories, the successful studies in this landmark collection reach beyond the world of finance to suggest, very powerfully, the importance of pursuing behavioral approaches to other areas of economic life. Advances in Behavioral Finance is a solid beachhead for behavioral work in the financial arena and a clear promise of wider application for behavioral economics in the future.

Politics of Large Numbers: A History of Statistical Reasoning


Alain Desrosières - 1993
    In this ambitious and sophisticated study of the history of statistics, which begins with probability theory in the seventeenth century, Alain Desrosieres shows how the evolution of modern statistics has been inextricably bound up with the knowledge and power of governments. He traces the complex reciprocity between modern governments and the mathematical artifacts that both dictate the duties of the state and measure its successes.No other work, in any language, covers such a broad spectrum--probability, mathematical statistics, psychology, economics, sociology, surveys, public health, medical statistics--in accurately synthesizing the history of statistics, with an emphasis on the conceptual development of social statistics, culminating in twentieth-century applied econometrics.

Post-Liberalism: Studies in Political Thought


John N. Gray - 1993
    This current volume is a sequel to his Liberalisms: Essays in Political Philosophy. The earlier book ended on a sceptical note, both in respect of what a post-liberal political philosophy might look like, and with respect to the claims of political philosophy itself.John Gray's new book gives post-liberal theory a more definite content. It does so by considering particular thinkers in the history of political thought, by criticizing the conventional wisdom, liberal and socialist, of the Western academic class, and most directly by specifying what remains of value in liberalism. The upshot of this line of thought is that we need not regret the failure of foundationalist liberalism, since we have all we need in the historic inheritance of the institutions of civil society. It is to the practice of liberty that these institutions encompass, rather than to empty liberal theory, that we should repair.

Learning and Practicing Econometrics


William E. Griffiths - 1993
    Each chapter commences in the way economists begin new empirical projects--with a question and an economic model--then proceeds to develop a statistical model, select an estimator and outline inference procedures. Contains a copious amount of problems, experimental exercises and case studies.

Democracy and Decision: The Pure Theory of Electoral Preference


Geoffrey Brennan - 1993
    The authors critique the dominant interest-based theory of voting and offer a competing theory, which they term an expressive theory of electoral politics. This theory is shown to be more coherent and more consistent with actually observed voting behavior. In particular, the theory does a better job of explaining the propensity of democratic regimes to make war, the predominance of moral questions on democratic regimes to make war, the predominance of moral questions on democratic political agendas, and the distribution of government resources in democratic systems. This important book offers a compelling challenge to the central premises of the prevailing theories of voting behavior and should serve as the basis for fundamental reevaluation in the field.

From Cottage to Work Station: The Family's Search for Social Harmony in the Industrial Age


Allan C. Carlson - 1993
    Carlson shows that the United States - rather than being "born modern" as a progressive consumerist society - was in fact founded as an agrarian society composed of independent households rooted in land, lineage and hierarchy. It also explains how the social effects of industrialization, particularly the "great divorce" of labor from the home, has been a defining issue in American domestic life, from the 1850s to the present. The book critically examines five distinct strategies to restore a foundation for family life in industrial society, drawing on the insights of Frederic Laplay, Carle Zimmerman, and G. K. Chesterton and outlines the necessary basis for family life. Family survival depends on the creation of meaningful, "pre-modern" household economies. As the author explains, "both men and women are called home to relearn the deeper meaning of the ancient words, husbandry and housewifery."

The End of American Exceptionalism: frontier anxiety from the Old West to the New Deal


David M. Wrobel - 1993
    Census Bureau, in 1890. Yet more homesteads were settled in the first few decades of the twentieth century than in the entire nineteenth century.Frontier anxiety, then, really was caused not by the closing of the frontier, but by the perception that the frontier was closing, argues David Wrobel. As early as the 1870s and through the 1930s, many Americans believed an important era had ended and worried about how this closure would affect society and democracy.The perceived expiration of a uniquely American way of life had an impact not only on the literature of the day but on public policy as well. While Frederick Jackson Turner and other intellectuals lamented nostalgically about the end of an era dominated by the rugged individualist and westward expansion, Zane Grey and other novelists brought to life cowboys and pioneers from bygone days who were more myth than reality. Presidents from Teddy Roosevelt to Franklin Roosevelt focused on the vanishing western frontier and its influence on the frontiers of the future.In The End of American Exceptionalism, Wrobel illustrates more than just how the perceived demise of the frontier brought about a longing for wilderness and the pioneer spirit. He emphasizes how it influenced debate on public land and immigration policy, expansionism, and the merits of individualistic and cooperative political systems. In addition, he relates how it affected and was affected by such diverse social and political issues as racism, industrialization, irrigation, tenant farming, class struggle, government intervention, and the naturalist movement.Wrobel doesn't focus rigidly on Turner or question the originality of Turner's thesis--that the frontier molded the nation's character--as historians have done in the past. Instead he suggests that the writings of Turner and other intellectuals were symptomatic of a frontier anxiety that began to take hold in the 1870s. Concentrating on the notions of these intellectuals over several decades, Wrobel shows how their reactions to the perceived ending of American exceptionalism--created by a unique frontier experience--helped shape the nation's cultural and political future.

Monetary Policy in the United States: An Intellectual and Institutional History


Richard H. Timberlake Jr. - 1993
    monetary policy, Richard H. Timberlake chronicles the intellectual, political, and economic developments that prompted the use of central banking institutions to regulate the monetary systems. After describing the constitutional principles that the Founding Fathers laid down to prevent state and federal governments from printing money. Timberlake shows how the First and Second Banks of the United States gradually assumed the central banking powers that were originally denied them. Drawing on congressional debates, government documents, and other primary sources, he analyses the origins and constitutionality of the greenbacks and examines the evolution of clearinghouse associations as private lenders of last resort. He completes this history with a study of the legislation that fundamentally changed the power and scope of the Federal Reserve System—the Banking Act of 1935 and the Monetary Control Act of 1980. Writing in nontechnical language, Timberlake demystifies two centuries of monetary policy. He concludes that central banking has been largely a series of politically inspired government-serving actions that have burdened the private economy.

The Philippines: The Political Economy Of Growth And Impoverishment In The Marcos Era


James K. Boyce - 1993
    During this period, the benefits of economic growth conspicuously failed to 'trickle down'. Despite rising per capita income, broad sectors of the Filipino population experienced deepening poverty. Tracing this outcome to the country's economic and political structure, Professor Boyce focuses upon three central elements of the government's development strategy: the 'green revolution' in rice agriculture; the primacy accorded to export agriculture and forestry; and massive external borrowing.

Japan's Capitalism: Creative Defeat and Beyond


Shigeto Tsuru - 1993
    Shigeto Tsuru, one of Japan's most eminent economists gives a comprehensive account of the recovery process, and a unique interpretation of the postwar Japanese economy.

Marx's Method in Capital


Fred Moseley - 1993
    The most important methodological issues discussed include the nature and significance of dialectical logic, the relation between essence and appearance, the order of determination between aggregate economic magnitudes and individual magnitudes, and the similarities between Marx's logical method and the method of Hegel.

The End of Economics?: Ethics and the Disorder of Progress


Cristovam Buarque - 1993
    At a time when our civilisational model is in crisis as a result of global environmental degradation and the failure of development to solve the problem of poverty, economics must accept that there have to be limits to growth and that the increasing inequality between both classes and countries is neither morally tolerable nor politically sensible. The very notion of economic progress needs to be rethought. Technological advance must respect nature, and the fetishism of applying economic theories without regard to their human consequences must be abandoned. This powerful exploration provides an essential starting point for those economists who see the need for a breakthrough to a new and more enduring paradigm in their discipline.

Minding Mr. Market: Ten Years on Wall Street with Grant's Interest Rate Observer


James Grant - 1993
    "A splendid work . . . filled with lucid observations".--Publishers Weekly.

Macroeconomics in the Global Economy


Jeffrey D. Sachs - 1993
    Open-economy models are used throughout the book. * the ways that countries differ in their important macroeconomic institutions (such as in the patterns of wage setting) are carefully examined, and then those institutional differences are related to observed differences in macroeconomic performance. * recent advances in macroeconomic theory are covered, particularly regarding the role of expectations; the intertemporal choices of households, firms, and the government; and the modern theory of economic policy, including the problems of time consistency and international policy coordination. * boxed features examine topics of interest including Social Security and Saving, The Central Bank and Politics, Currency Convertibility, The Sacrifice Ratio and the Reagan Disinflation, and Social Development and the Debt Crisis. * each chapter concludes with

Financial Institutions and Markets


Meir Kohn - 1993
    Kohn's Financial Institutions and Markets, 2/e. Unlike most books designed for financial markets and institutions courses, this successful text focuses on the why of existing and evolving markets and instruments as well as the how. Financial Institutions and Markets, 2/e, makes clear the general principles and economic functions underlying all financial intermediaries. It provides a thorough discussion of the specifics of banking, insurance, pension funds, and mutual funds. In a similar fashion, the book elucidates the general principles and economic functions common to all financial markets and offers an in-depth look at the specifics of the particular markets for government securities, mortgages, corporate debt, equity, and derivatives. The final section addresses the management of liquidity and risk and discusses the safety, stability, and regulation of financial intermediaries and financial markets. Each chapter begins with a list of study objectives and concludes with a summary. Key terms are listed at the end of each chapter and defined in marginal glossaries as they occur in the text. End-of-chapter questions are included to provide a stimulus for discussion. Accessible to a wide range of students, Financial Institutions and Markets, 2/e, is ideal for courses in financial institutions, financial markets, or a combination of institutions and markets at either the undergraduate or graduate level.

Taxation and Democracy: Swedish, British and American Approaches to Financing the Modern State


Sven Steinmo - 1993
    Comparing three quite different political democracies—Sweden, Britain, and the United States—the book provides a powerful account of the ways these democracies have managed to finance their welfare programs despite widespread public resistance to taxes. Sven Steinmo argues that the different political structures of these countries produce varying tax systems and, by extension, differing social policy regimes.According to Steinmo, all democracies face a basic dilemma—how government can be both autonomous and responsive to public wishes. This dilemma is a crucial factor in explaining their different tax systems. In the United States, for example, the system of multiple checks and balances and fragmented political authority has led to a tax system that is complex, inefficient, and has a low revenue yield. Sweden's corporatist model of government is less responsive to the will of the masses, and so the country has a surprisingly regressive tax system that is stable, efficient, and has a high revenue yield: its working class basically agrees to accept a heavy tax burden in exchange for heavy social welfare spending. The British government, which is dominated by strong parties, can virtually dictate tax policy preferences to the Parliament, and so its tax system is highly unstable, as is the distribution of tax burdens among classes. Steinmo demonstrates that the "New Institutionalism" can account for both historic continuities and political change—that common economic and political forces confronting these countries in the twentieth century were shaped by each country's changing political institutions. His study thus makes an important contribution to comparative political theory as well as to our understanding of the development of the modern welfare state.

Proletarians of the North: A History of Mexican Industrial Workers in Detroit and the Midwest, 1917-1933


Zaragosa Vargas - 1993
    Many found work in agriculture, but thousands more joined the growing ranks of the industrial proletariat. Throughout the northern Midwest, and especially in Detroit, Mexican workers entered steel mills, packing houses, and auto plants, becoming part of the modern American working class.Zaragosa Vargas's work focuses on this little-known feature in the history of Chicanos and American labor. In relating the experiences of Mexicans in workplace and neighborhood, and in showing the roles of Mexican women, the Catholic Church, and labor unions, Vargas enriches our knowledge of immigrant urban life. His is an important work that will be welcomed by historians of Chicano Studies and American labor.

National Innovation Systems: A Comparative Analysis


Richard R. Nelson - 1993
    This combines a strong belief that technological capabilities of a nation's firms are a key source of their competitive process, with a belief that these capabilities are in a sense national, and can be built by national action. This book is about these national systems of technical innovation. The heart of the work contains studies of seventeen countries--from large market-oriented industrialized ones to several smaller high income ones, including a number of newly industrialized states as well. Clearly written, this work highlights institutions and mechanisms which support technical innovation, showing similarities, differences, and their sources across nations, making this work accessible to students as well as the scholars of innovation.

The Rise of China: How Economic Reform is Creating a New Superpower


William H. Overholt - 1993
    In 1992 it grew 12. 8 percent, rising to 13.4 percent in 1993. Cumulatively, this is the greatest sustained growth in human history. Even if it slows substantially it is likely to surpass the economy of the United States early in the twenty-first century.Overholt, who holds a Ph.D. from Yale University, is a managing director of Bankers Trust Company in Hong Kong and the author of several books. Based in Hong Kong since 1985, he has traveled widely in China and has served as political adviser to several of Asia's major political figures. This book is his account of China's remarkable growth, told authoritatively and in unique detail by a close and astute observer.

Free Minds and Free Markets


Robert W. Poole Jr. - 1993
    Includes interviews with Milton Friedman and Ronald Reagan.

Bulletproof Your Financial Future


Bruce A. Lefavi - 1993
    A blueprint for preparing for all economic catastrophes and for making the best long-term investments.--Houston Business Journal.

Truth Versus Precision In Economics


Thomas Mayer - 1993
    The text provides a rigorous methodological assessment of the New Classical and New Keynesian approaches and their failings.

Mathematics in Economics: Models and Methods


Adam Ostaszewski - 1993
    The approach to mathematics is rigorous and the mathematical techniques are always presented in the context of the economics problem they are used to solve. Students can gain insight into, and familiarity with, the mathematical models and methods involved in the transition from 'phenomenon' to quantitative statement.

Arguments For A New Left: Answering The Free Market Right


Hilary Wainwright - 1993
    Challenged by the appeal of neo-liberalism to young organizers in the civic movements of Central Europe, she tackles Hayek's critique of the all-knowing state, and his regonition of 'practical knowledge' that no state or party can secind guess. Drawing an alternative view of knowledge from the practice of social movements (from the 1968 student revolt, through militant shop stewards organizations and the women's movement, to green activism of the 1980's) as well as from new philosophical currents, Wainwright counters Hayek's individualism and denial of the legitimacy of the collective action, with a conception of knowledge as fundamentally social.On this foundation she establishes a new understanding of transformative political agengy as well as self-consciously experimental and involving a combination of representative and participatory forms of democracy. Arguments for a new Left is sure to provokr wide discussion.

Cultural Change in Rural Indonesia: Impact of Village Development


Selo Soemardjan - 1993
    

Ultimate Security: The Environmental Basis of Political Stability


Norman Myers - 1993
    His book is chockablock with recent portents ... and [predictions of] loss of stability or out-and-out conflict over natural resource related issues." -Publishers Weekl."Myers, a widely published professional conservationist, brings together seven regional case studies and five global case studies to support his thesis that 'environmental problems will likely become predominant causses of conflict in the decades ahead.' Writing for the general public, Myers draws upon his field work in over 80 countries as well as his work with the World Commission on Environment and Development. ... [He] marshals compelling data about the environmental threat and sounds the alarm that political leadership is failing to respond. An interesting, lively book." -Library Journal

Towards a New Socialism


Paul Cockshott - 1993
    We also examine issues of inequality and its elimination, systems of payment for labour, a democratic political constitution for a socialist commonwealth, the commune as a set of arrangements for living, and property relations under socialism.

Dark Victory: The United States and Global Poverty


Walden Bello - 1993
    At the same time, working people in the North find their living standards declining. Dark Victory reveals the roots of these global trends in a sweeping strategy of global economic rollback unleashed by the U.S. to shore up the North's domination of the international economy and reassert corporate control. Bello argues that lower barriers to imports, removal of restrictions on foreign investments, privatisation of state owned activities, reduction in social welfare spending, and wage cuts and devaluation of local currencies - all conditions of structural adjustment loans from the North - have had disastrous consequences. Dark Victory is now reissued with a new epilogue by the authors.

Common Sense


Tony Benn - 1993
    Our constitution is NOT the best in the world, nor is our legal system the fairest, nor is our society more open, nor are we freer than other nations. Things taken for granted are now being seriously questioned, as people realize how much of our political and economic life is outside our control. Ever since Tony Benn changed our constitution by renouncing his peerage, he has been developing the case he now outlines. His Commonwealth of Britain Bill (reproduced in the Text) is 'the first attempt to overthrow the monarchy since Cromwell' GUARDIAN. He argues for a radical overhaul of our political system, sweeping away privilege and unaccounted power and substituting for it a written constitution and democratic citizenship. Only by freeing ourselves from our historical shackles - including, but by no means only, the monarchy - can we be truly free.

Dynamic Capabilities and Strategic Management: Organizing for Innovation and Growth


David J. Teece - 1993
    These are the skills, processes, routines, organizational structures, and disciplines that enable firms to build, employ, and orchestrate intangible assets relevant to satisfying customer needs, and which cannot be readily replicated by competitors. Enterprises with strong dynamic capabilities are intensely entrepreneurial. They not onlyadapt to business ecosystems; they also shape them through innovation, collaboration, learning, and involvement.David Teece was the pioneer of the dynamic capabilities perspective. It is grounded in 25 years of his research, teaching, and consultancy. His ideas have been influential in business strategy, management, and economics, and are relevant to innovation, technology management, and competition policy.Through his consultancy and advisory work he has also brought these ideas to bear in business and policy making around the world.This book is the clearest and most succinct statement of the core ideas of dynamic capabilities. Teece explains their genesis, application, and how they offer an alternative approach to much conventional strategic thinking grounded in simplistic and outdated understandings of industrialorganizations and the foundations of competitive advantage. Accessibly written and presented, it will be an invaluable and stimulating tool for all those who want to understand this important contribution to strategic thinking, be they MBA students, academics, managers, or consultants.

Marx's Theory of Crisis


Simon Clarke - 1993
    The recent publication of the last important manuscripts makes it possible for the first time to provide a complete and systematic account of Marx's theory of crisis. Simon Clarke's important new book begins with a critical analytical survey of Marxist theories of crisis, before focusing on the development of the theory of crisis in Marx's own works, examining the theory within the context of Marx's critique of political economy and of his distinctive theory of the dynamics of capitalism. The book concentrates on the scientific interpretation and evaluation of the theory of crisis, and will be of interest to mainstream economists, as well as to sociologists, political scientists and students of Marx and Marxism.

The Panoptic Sort: A Political Economy Of Personal Information


Oscar H. Gandy Jr. - 1993
    Describes and analyzes today's panoptic operation, which depends on the ability of operators to classify and sort information about individuals in such a way that techniques of correct training or rehabilitation may subsequently be applied more efficiently.

World Trade Since 1431: Geography, Technology, and Capitalism


Peter J. Hugill - 1993
    It is precisely this interplay of technology and geography, argues Peter J. Hugill, that has guided the evolution of the modern global capitalistic system. Tracing the relationship between technology and economy over the past 550 years, Hugill finds that the nations that developed and marketed new technologies best were the nations that rose to world power, while those that held onto outdated technologies fell behind. Moreover, he argues, major changes in transportation and communication technologies actually constituted the moments of transformation from one world economy to another.

Working Harder Isn't Working


Bruce O'Hara - 1993
    Technology has performed its miracle: today's workers can produce twice as much per hour as their 1950s counterparts. So why are we told that we must work longer and harder -- for less money -- to survive in today's "competitive economy"? What's gone wrong?Massive unemployment, soaring taxes, runaway debt, environmental degradation, and growing levels of poverty and personal suffering are the direct results of our stubborn refusal to let go of the 40-hour workweek. Bruce O'Hara offers a concrete, detailed program to reclaim the future of our dreams: a bold and delightful plan to work less and enjoy life more.

Commodity Chains and Global Capitalism


Gary Gereffi - 1993
    It thus has brought to the fore the key role of commodity chains in the relationships of capital, labor, and states. Commodity chains are most simply defined as the link between successive processes of manufacturing that result in a final product available for individual consumption. Each production site in the chain involves organizing the acquisition of necessary raw materials plus semifinished inputs, the recruitment of labor power and its provisioning, arranging transportation to the next site, and the construction of modes of distribution (via markets and transfers) and consumption.The contributors to this volume explore and elaborate the global commodity chains (GCCs) approach, which reformulates the basic conceptual categories for analyzing varied patterns of global organization and change. The GCC framework allows the authors to pose questions about development issues, past and present, that are not easily handled by previous paradigms and to more adequately forge the macro-micro links between processes that are generally assumed to be discretely contained within global, national, and local units of analysis. The paradigm that GCCs embody is a network-centered, historical approach that probes above and below the level of the nation-state to better analyze structure and change in the contemporary world.

Grow Rich Slowly: 2the Merrill Lynch Guide to Retirement Planning


Don Underwood - 1993
    Grow Rich Slowly is the first book to distill the expertise of these retirement financing authorities and tailor it to the specific needs of real readers.

The World of Consumption: The Material and Cultural Revisited


Ben Fine - 1993
    In this comprehensively updated and revised new edition, traditional approaches as well as the most recent literature are fully addressed and incorporated, with wide reference to theoretical and empirical work. Fine's refreshing and authoritative text includes a critical examination of such themes as:* economics imperialism and globalization* the world of commodities* systems of provision and culture* the consumer society* public consumption.This book presents an updated analysis of the cluttered landscape of studies of consumption that will make it required reading for students from a wide range of backgrounds including political economy, history and social science courses generally.

Bounded Rationality in Macroeconomics: The Arne Ryde Memorial Lectures


Thomas J. Sargent - 1993
    The concept of bounded (or limited) rationality is being developed to analyze behavior in such situations. In this book Thomas Sargent describes and interprets the recent work in the area, especially in statistics, econometrics, networks and artificial intelligence. He focuses on examples designed to illustrate the issues involved and the kinds of questions that are being asked and answered in this research. He points to further potential positive developments of the theory as well as some of its limitations.

Institutional Incentives And Sustainable Development: Infrastructure Policies In Perspective


Elinor Ostrom - 1993
    The authors present a method for systematically comparing alternative institutional arrangements for the development of rural infrastructure. Their analysis reveals the special strengths and weaknesses of polycentric as compared to centralized or decentralized institutional arrangements. Descriptions of a variety of infrastructure projects—including roads, bridges, and irrigation systems—in geographical settings as diverse as Africa, Asia, and Latin America are used to illustrate key concepts.Perfect for courses on policy analysis, development administration, and economic development and for use by professional practitioners, Institutional Incentives contributes appreciably and practically to the understanding of sustainable development, infrastructure maintenance, institutional analysis, and the central importance of institutional arrangements.

Free for All?: Lessons from the Rand Health Insurance Experiment


Joseph P. Newhouse - 1993
    It will be an invaluable teaching tool and reference for anyone concerned with health-care policy.

Public Education: An Autopsy


Myron Lieberman - 1993
    No other book on educational policy or reform covers such a broad range of issues or draws upon such extensive empirical data across such diverse academic disciplines. This is a refreshingly clear analysis of our educational crisis and a rallying cry for market-system approaches to school reform. Nobody emerges unscathed--Lieberman's analysis challenges the advocates of choice as well as the defenders of the public schools.

Voice of Indigenous Peoples: Native People Address the United Nations


Alexander Ewen - 1993
    Makes us aware of the global nature of the disaster facing indigenous people and the human race as a whole: the disappearance of diversity and traditional ways of life, as well as the loss of the vital knowledge of how to sustain equilibrium with our planetary environment.

We Hold These Truths and More: Further Catholic Reflections on the American Proposition: The Thought of Fr. John Courtney Murray, S.J. and Its Releva


Donald J. D'Elia - 1993
    

Downwardly Mobile for Conscience Sake


Anne NearJudi Buchman - 1993
    

The Philosophy and Methodology of Economics


Bruce Caldwell - 1993
    This important and timely three volume reference collection contains the best of the recent work together with a number of classic articles by economists and philosophers. It focuses in the main on articles and papers that have not been previously reprinted and presents in an accessible form important material that is scattered throughout the literature.

The Best Of Bagehot


Walter Bagehot - 1993
    

The Political Economy of Customs and Culture: Informal Solutions to the Commons Problem


Terry L. Anderson - 1993
    Without well-defined, enforced, and transferable property rights, the tragedy of the commons is said to result as in the classic case of over-fishing and over-grazing. This book challenges this narrow view of property rights by examining the role of informal constraints imposed by customs and culture. Recognizing that a great deal of human interaction takes place in the absence of individually specified rights, the authors challenge the notion that tragedy is inevitable within the commons.

Why We Spend Too Much on Health Care & What We Can Do About It


Joseph L. Bast - 1993
    has faced the public health challenges of AIDS, drug abuse, and teenage pregnancy with a lower rate of spending growth than most countries. The authors blame high U.S. health care costs on government spending, tax breaks for health insurance premiums, and over-regulation of the industry. They present a bold free-market plan for lowering unnecessary health care spending while retaining world-class quality and expanding access for the needy.

The Future of Progess: Reflections on Enviornment and Development


Edward Goldsmith - 1993