Knowledge that Transforms

This article assesses the possible future directions and roles of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. It first reviews their initially envisaged roles at Bretton Woods, and their evolution, concluding that both institutions played valuable roles earlier on. But for both institutions, the world has changed, and the questions as to their future are important. For the IMF, those questions center on its role in providing finance for poor developing countries in balance of payments difficulties and on its role for middle income countries in managing financial crises. For the World Bank, the question is whether it can and should gradually phase out lending for most middle income countries except in times of drastic policy reforms and focus on low-income countries, or whether it should address the soft issues of development.

Early economic models assumed that the maximizing behavior of individual actors was the primary determinant of political as well as market outcomes. This approach revolved several long-standing puzzles in political science, but created new anomalies in place of the old: why do citizens vote in large elections? Why are democratic legislatures as stable as they are? Partly in response to these anomalies, the emphasis has shifted from the study of self-interested choice, to the study of constraints on self-interested choice. This has opened new doors for the study of bureaucracies, parties, and other fundamental political institutions.

Friedrich A. Hayek was a life-long opponent of socialism. Three of his contributions are surveyed and placed within historical context: his debates in the 1930s with the market socialists, his political critique of socialism in The Road to Serfdom, and his evolutionary arguments against "rationalist constructivists." Recent discussions that use the economics of information to analyze the prospects for socialism are also reviewed. It is argued that theorists working in the economics of information have not recognized just how far Hayek's conceptualization of the appropriate theoretical constructs for economics deviates from those of mainstream economists. As such they have misunderstood what may constitute an independent set of arguments against socialism.

The Tax Reform Act of 1986 constituted the most sweeping postwar change in the U.S. federal income tax. This paper considers what the Act accomplished and its implications for future tax policy. After a review of the Act itself, and why it happened, we consider the evidence of the Act's impact on economic activity and how this evidence squares with initial predictions. Where appropriate, we draw out how consideration of the impact of TRA86 has contributed to the development of the methodology of economic analysis. We conclude with an overall evaluation of the Act.

This article examines past evaluations of government training programs for the economically disadvantaged and offers an agenda for future research. It is found that government training programs are producing modest increases in earnings for adult men and women, but are probably not producing positive effects for youth. Future research must better document links between program-provided training and acquisition of valuable skills and must explore potential returns from increased scale. The recent adoption of random assignment has improved the accuracy of field evaluations but would benefit from an economic theory of evaluation to guide research into increasing training effectiveness.

In recent years there have been growing demands to make trade liberalization contingent on adoption of common labor and environmental standards. The straightforward economic answer is that this makes little sense: neither the gains from trade nor the gains from appropriate regulation are compromised if other countries impose standards that are weaker than your own. It is possible to offer second-bet economic rationales for harmonization, but these are empirically unconvincing. The only serious argument in favor or regulation is political: that regulation which is in the national interest may not be politically feasible unless other countries do the same.

The deterioration of economic performance in Sweden from about 1970 was to some extent result of a number of exogenous shocks and unnecessary policy mistakes. It was, however, also related to basic changes in economic and social system in Sweden in late 1960s and early 1970, when government spending, taxes, and regulations started to expand dramatically. It is also argued in paper that problematic political, economic, and social mechanisms had become embedded in long-term dynamics of system itself. These various experiences are background for recent reforms and retreats of the Swedish experiment.

This book demonstrates alternatives to the lecture and chalkboard approach that dominates the teaching of economics, providing a range of innovative teaching techniques and examples aimed at engaging undergraduates in the learning of economics.

This article reviews the evidence on cross-national comparisons of earnings and income inequality in OECD countries. It begins with a series of stylized facts which are then examined and supported by recent studies in the field. Economic, demographic, institutional and policy-related influences on earnings and income distribution are reviewed. The paper concludes with a call for more work on empirically testable structural models of household income distribution.