"If you do not think about the future, you cannot have one," the British author John Galsworthy wrote at the beginning of this century. In An Agenda for the 21st Century, Rushworth Kidder, award-winning columnist for the Christian Science Monitor, has taken up Galsworthy's challenge. He conducts...

Why, at the peak of the Jim Crow era early in the twentieth century, did life expectancy for African Americans rise dramatically? And why, when public officials were denying African Americans access to many other public services, did public water and sewer service for African Americans improve...

In this rigorous and well-crafted work, Kenneth Wolpin examines the role of theory in inferential empirical work in economics and the social sciences in general--that is, any research that uses raw data to go beyond the mere statement of fact or the tabulation of statistics. He considers in...

What principles should govern the design of governmental, budgetary and financial policy? Policymakers in the major industrial countries and officials of international organizations are deeply concerned about rising public debt burdens. But there are others who believe that only public spending...

Charles P. Kindleberger's rich and distinguished career has spanned nearly six decades. The essays collected here reflect the author's shift in interests from foreign exchange to international trade, economic growth, and economic history, especially financial history. They also contain dollops...

These studies of Colombian economic, political, and social institutions offer not only theoretically grounded analyses but also practical recommendations for policy reform. Experts from the United States, Europe, and Colombia approach such problems as executive-legislative branch conflict,...

The sixteen essays in this book were written to celebrate the ninetieth birthday of Richard Musgrave and to commemorate the tenth anniversary of CES, the Center for Economic Studies at the University of Munich. Musgrave is considered to be a founding father of modern public economics. He belongs...

Public economics studies how government taxing and spending activities affect the economy--economic efficiency and the distribution of income and wealth. This comprehensive text in public economics covers the core topics market failure and taxation as well as recent developments in the political...

Since 1991, Robert Barro has been a lively contributor to the Wall Street Journal and other popular financial media. Getting It Right brings together, updates, and expands upon these writings that showcase Barro's agility in applying economic understanding to a wide array of social issues....

Colombia, once a model of fiscal discipline for other Latin American nations, has seen its fiscal situation deteriorate since the early 1990s. Higher government spending, taxes that did not keep pace with expenditures, and severe recession led to an unsustainable debt-to-GDP ratio of 52 percent...