The key problem is our capital markets.
Economic Policy
Posted inEconomic Policy
The Moral Equivalent of War Production
Restoration of robust growth is the paramount challenge facing the nation, the most significant issue of the 1992 election, and the first task that will face a new administration. Indeed, all other important public questions are being held hostage to a sick economy that depresses aspiration, increases unemployment, de pletes revenue, and makes public remediation […]
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Life After Tight Money
The conservative experiment with tight money has failed. Popular monetary prescriptions—low interest rates and a more accountable Federal Reserve—are steps in the right direction. But they must go hand in hand with structural reforms to get the econo
Posted inEconomic Policy
Liberalism, Socialism, and Democracy
What, if anything, can be usefully salvaged from the socialist tradition, now that communism lies in final disgrace? Paul Starr argued in these pages last fall that four developments — the implosion of communism, the collapse of efforts to reform communism from within, the failure of socialism in the Third World, and the shift of […]
Posted inEconomic Policy
The Myth of a Savings Shortage
A precipitous decline in saving during the 1980s? A closer look shows it isn’t so.
Posted inEconomic Policy
Flexibility Trap: The Proliferation of Marginal Jobs
Temporary and part-time jobs may be penny-wise for employers, but pound-foolish for the economy.
Posted inEconomic Policy
Is There a Democratic Economics?
The real issue is not the current downturn, but the fifteen-year decline in living standards. That should be the focus of a reframed debate—and different remedies.
Posted inAmerica and the World
More Like Them?
The Japanese economic system violates many of the basic principles of the Adam Smithian economics. Instead of crying “foul”, maybe we need to learn how and why Japan’s model works.
