More than two decades ago the Brookings Institution first published a book with the title of this lecture. The idea behind the book was straightforward—rather than being led by events, or falling into the trap of incremental budgeting, budgetary planners should try to set priorities. They...

The post-World War I period has seen substantial changes in the world income distribution. As a result, the shape of the distribution has changed from something that looks like a normal distribution in 1960 to a bimodal 'twin peaks' distribution in 1988. Projecting these changes into the future...

This paper discusses an econometric equation that explains votes for president as a function of economic events and incumbency information. The history of the equation is reviewed, the update after the 1992 election is discussed, and a prediction for the 1996 election is made conditional on an...