Reflections of a Political Economist Selected Articles on Government Policies and Political Processes

by Niskanen, William A.

• ISBN13: 9781933995205
• ISBN10: 1933995203
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-08-13
• Publisher: Cato Institute

Summary

Reflections of a Political Economist collects some of the most incisive and important policy analysis and public choice articles by William A. Niskanen from the last fifteen years. His interests have ranged widely during this time, covering many different areas of public policy, always with an eye toward rigorous economic thinking, fiscal conservatism, and finding shrewd, practical solutions to important problems. In Part I readers will find a discussion of a wide array of policy topics, including taxation, health and retirement funding, terrorism and military preparedness, and corporate governance. These selections bring to the discussion both hard data and theoretical sophistication, making the case for modest, sensible regulations, limited government, and free enterprise. Niskanen rarely lets easy assumptions go unchallenged; one hallmark of his work is to quantify the costs and benefits of a policy and then compare these to the conventional wisdom, which often turns up lacking. In Part II Niskanen turns to public choice, wherein he discusses economic models of various government types, voting, bureaucracy, and constitutional structure. He also reviews several of his recent research interests, including taxation and spending under autocratic, democratic, and optimal governments; European constitutionalism; and various models of bureaucracy and voting. Readers interested in public choice will find more than just summaries of settled questions, however, as Niskanen also discusses several potential research topics in a field that continues to grow. Part III includes a selection of Niskanen's book reviews, in which he considers the works of other notable economists, including Paul Krugman, Mancur Olson, James M. Buchanan, and Alan Greenspan. Part IV offers three more personal reflections, each to some degree removed from economics, but all reflecting Niskanen's thoughtful, understated approach to important issues, wherever he finds them.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 1
Policy Analysis
Oil Is Not Worth a War	p. 7
R&D and Economic Growth: Cautionary Thoughts	p. 13
Too Much, Too Soon: Is a Global Warming Treaty a Rush to Judgment?	p. 29
Next Steps toward Health Policy Reform	p. 41
The Economic Basis for Military Capability	p. 49
Creating Good Jobs and Good Wages	p. 61
Should the Ex-Im Bank Be Retired?	p. 77
On the Death of the Phillips Curve	p. 83
The Economic Burden of Taxation	p. 91
Increasing Individual Responsibility Would Improve Retirement Security	p. 99
An Unnecessary War Is an Unjust War	p. 107
Major Policy Lessons from the Corporate Scandals	p. 113
An Unconventional Perspective on the Greenspan Record	p. 119
The Several Costs of Responding to the Threat of Terrorism	p. 123
The Failure to Starve the Beast	p. 131
Public Choice
Autocratic, Democratic, and Optimal Government: A Sketch	p. 139
A Vote for Perot Was a Vote for the Status Quo	p. 167
On the Constitution of a Compound Republic	p. 175
Bureaucracy: A Final Perspective	p. 189
Bringing Power to Knowledge: Choosing Policies to Use Decentralized Knowledge	p. 207
On the Origin and Identification of Government Failures	p. 221
The Intellectual Case for a Free Market Economy	p. 229
U.S. Elections Are Increasingly Biased against Moderates	p. 237
Advice from a Friendly American on the Proposed Constitution for the European Union	p. 243
A Case for Divided Government	p. 251
Alternative Political and Economic Futures for Europe	p. 255
On Wisconsin: Some Friendly Constitutional Advice	p. 267
A Reformulation of Voting Theory	p. 281
Book Reviews
Pop Internationalism	p. 293
Everything for Sale: The Virtues and Limits of Markets	p. 297
Perspectives on Public Choice: A Handbook	p. 301
Power and Prosperity: Outgrowing Communist and Capitalist Dictatorship	p. 305
In Defense of Free Capital Markets: The Case Against a New International Financial Architecture	p. 309
Virginia Political Economy: The Selected Works of Gordon Tullock, Volume 1	p. 313
Pay Without Performance: The Unfulfilled Promise of Executive Compensation	p. 317
The Market for Virtue: The Potential and Limits of Corporate Social Responsibility	p. 321
Why I, Too, Am Not a Conservative: The Normative Vision of Classical Liberalism	p. 327
The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World	p. 331
Personal Reflections
A Reflection on the Major Developments in the World, 1951-2000	p. 337
Policy Proposals from the Libertarian Right	p. 345
A Personal Reflection on the Trinity	p. 349
About the Author	p. 353
Index	p. 355
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