Economic Policy

World Bank Chief Economist Joseph Stiglitz didn’t set out to become a thorn in the administration’s side. But by being the odd man out in Clinton’s international economic policymaking apparatus, he has managed to have a very constructive effect.

J eff Faux and his Economic Policy Institute have consistently shed light on the dark recesses of the American economy–exposing the decline of wages that accompanied the Reagan and Clinton booms and debunking the promise of an export boom with Mexico. I agree with his criticism of Clinton’s trade policies. But I don’t feel the […]

Three views of what to do with the budget surplus.

Since Robert Reich coined the phrase several years ago, “corporate welfare” has become a rhetorical target for progressives. Activists argue that government subsidies to private businesses amount to giveaways, which sometimes even promote harmful activity. These critics have established “corporate welfare” in the lexicon of both liberal and conservative politics: a recent computer search turned […]

As long as the big choices in macroeconomic policy are off the table, other efforts to raise living standards will not make much difference.

O ur text, fittingly enough, is the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal. At the top of the page for June 3 is an essay by Wayne Angell, the former governor of the Federal Reserve. “Over the past 15 years stock prices in the U.S. have risen at a 15 percent annual rate,” he […]

How to Zero Out the Debt J . Fife Symington III, the Republican governor of Arizona, is so conservative that he has sought to abolish the state’s Depart ment of Education. But, poor fellow, he’s broke, as the Economist recently reported. When he was elected in 1991, Symington said he was worth $10 million. Three […]

A higher percentage of Americans are working than at any time since World War II. But policy-makers could wreck a dawning era of high employment.

The Federal Reserve’s crusade against the ghost of inflation has driven unemployment much higher than the official numbers suggest. It’s not technology that’s keeping down wages — it’s the policy of America’s politically insulated central bank.