Mad about Trade
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 226

Mad about Trade

Politicians and pundits can rage against free trade and globalization, but much of what they convey is myth says the author. He argues that free trade is good for the American family. Among the benefits he discusses are import competition that provides lower prices, greater variety, and better quality, especially for poor and middle class families. Driven in part by trade, most new jobs are well-paying service jobs. Foreign investment here has created well-paying jobs, and investment abroad has given United States companies access to millions of new customers. Trade helped expand the global middle class, reducing poverty and child labor while fueling demand for U.S. products. The author also looks at how the past three decades of an open global economy have created a more prosperous, democratic, and peaceful world.

Arbitrary Lines
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 258

Arbitrary Lines

  • Type: Book
  • -
  • Published: 2022-06-21
  • -
  • Publisher: Island Press

It's time for America to move beyond zoning, argues city planner M. Nolan Gray in Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It. With lively explanations, Gray shows why zoning abolition is a necessary--if not sufficient--condition for building more affordable, vibrant, equitable, and sustainable cities. Gray lays the groundwork for this ambitious cause by clearing up common misconceptions about how American cities regulate growth and examining four contemporary critiques of zoning (its role in increasing housing costs, restricting growth in our most productive cities, institutionalizing racial and economic segregation, and mandating sprawl). He sets out some of the efforts currently underway to reform zoning and charts how land-use regulation might work in the post-zoning American city. Arbitrary Lines is an invitation to rethink the rules that will continue to shape American life--where we may live or work, who we may encounter, how we may travel. If the task seems daunting, the good news is that we have nowhere to go but up.

Entrepreneurship and the Market Process
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 211

Entrepreneurship and the Market Process

What is the significance of entrepreneurship in an economy? Scholars have argued that when the market is viewed as a process of perpetual adjustment to various forces, and not as a set of end-state prices and quantities simply arrived at, the role of the entrepreneur comes to the fore. What then are fruitful ways to conceive of the phenomenon of entrepreneurship? How do entrepreneurs both respond to and shape larger forces in the economy? In what ways can political institutions and government regulation shape the decisions made by entrepreneurs, and their responsiveness to consumers? How does the cultural environment influence the types of opportunities that an entrepreneur will notice and a...

Bottom-up Responses to Crisis
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 160

Bottom-up Responses to Crisis

Crises occur in all societies across world, and can be natural (such as hurricanes, flooding, and earthquakes), man-made (such as wars and economic downturns), or, often, a combination of both (such as famines, the flooding of New Orleans in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina and subsequent levy failures, and the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster in Japan in 2011). Crises cause fatalities, injuries, and property damages as well as introduce uncertainty and challenges for individuals, societies, and polities. Yet, we see individuals and communities rebounding effectively from crises all the time. How do communities go about returning to normalcy and beginning again the mundane life of every...

What's Wrong with Protectionism
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 142

What's Wrong with Protectionism

Putting tariffs on imported goods or setting other barriers to international trade can be tempting for politicians. They assume that many of their constituents believe that free trade is not fair trade and that other countries aren’t playing by the rules. This belief makes it easy for industry leaders to demand protection for their businesses and their workers—to “put America first.” But Americans should resist the siren calls of protectionism. In this highly relevant protectionism primer, Pierre Lemieux shows what can happen if they don’t. As the author demonstrates, trade between any two countries is fair for the same reasons as exchange between two individuals: it is to the bene...

Discover Your Inner Economist
  • Language: en

Discover Your Inner Economist

One of America’s most respected economists presents a quirky, incisive romp through everyday life that reveals how you can turn economic reasoning to your advantage—often when you least expect it to be relevant. Like no other economist, Tyler Cowen shows how economic notions—such as incentives, signals, and markets—apply far more widely than merely to the decisions of social planners, governments, and big business. What does economic theory say about ordering from a menu? Or attracting the right mate? Or controlling people who talk too much in meetings? Or dealing with your dentist? With a wryly amusing voice, in chapters such as “How to Control the World, The Basics” and “How ...

Violence and Social Orders
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 345

Violence and Social Orders

This book integrates the problem of violence into a larger framework, showing how economic and political behavior are closely linked.

Dark Money
  • Language: en

Dark Money

  • Type: Book
  • -
  • Published: 2019
  • -
  • Publisher: Turtleback

None

Left Turn
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 305

Left Turn

A leading political scientist provides a rigorous and revealing analysis of liberal media bias: “I’m no conservative, but I loved Left Turn” (Steven Levitt, author of Freakonomics). Dr. Tim Groseclose, a professor of political science and economics at UCLA, has spent years constructing precise, quantitative measures of the slant of media outlets. He does this by measuring the political content of news, as a way to measure the PQ, or “political quotient” of voters and politicians. Among his conclusions are: (i) all mainstream media outlets have a liberal bias; and (ii) while some supposedly conservative outlets—such the Washington Times or Fox News’ Special Report—do lean righ...

The Political Economy of Public Pensions
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 131

The Political Economy of Public Pensions

Public pensions in the United States face an impending funding crisis in the wake of the financial crisis and the COVID-19 recession. Many cities and states will struggle to meet these growing obligations without major cuts in government services, reneging on pension promises, or raising taxes. This Element examines the development of the pension crisis through the lens of political economy. We analyze the knowledge and incentive problems inherent in the institutional structure, governance, and accounting of public pensions. We conclude by offering several institutional, governance, and reporting reforms to address the pension funding crisis.