Economic Policy

Continuing the debate from “The Speed Limit,” by Alan S. Blinder, and “Why We Can Grow Faster,” by Barry Bluestone and Bennett Harrison (September-October 1997).

Working- and middle-class voters remain economically anxious. But in the absence of a convincing narrative that connects to their lives, many are concluding from their condition that the only remedy is rugged individualism.

What if the reasonable growth, low unemployment, and low inflation of the last few years are in fact the vindication of Keynesian theory about consumption spending? And what if this spending has been driven not by government but by the stock market run-up? And what if the stock market collapses? 

If California’s present is the nation’s future, then the Golden State’s split-level prosperity is an ominous social indicator.

Redistributing income has always been difficult politics, but recent books propose a host of wealth-building ideas that may have some purchase even in today’s free market political environment. 

F rom the early-nineteenth-century introduction of steam power through the dawning of the age of the microchip in the post-World War II era, real economic growth in America averaged 3.8 percent per year. That meant economic output doubled roughly every 19 years. Then after the 1970s, growth collapsed. During the 1980s, growth averaged just 2.7 […]

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.

It seemed appropriate to begin my series of modest screeds with a short pre- snake person analysis of where power is moving to in America. Here’s who’s losing it: Giant corporations and their CEOs. They’ve made money in the current expansion, but they’re losing clout. Vast industrial- age bureaucracies can’t move fast enough. All are […]