by Mark Carl Rom
University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996
Paper: 978-0-8229-5600-6 | Cloth: 978-0-8229-3943-6 | eISBN: 978-0-8229-7483-3
Library of Congress Classification HG2152.R65 1996
Dewey Decimal Classification 332.320973

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ABOUT THIS BOOK

Winner of the Harold Lasswell Award of the American Political Science Association

The FSFIC failed spectacularly during the 1980s, costing taxpayers an estimated $200 billion. In this award-winning analysis, Rom examines the political causes of this “thrift tragedy.” He directly confronts-and rejects-the dominant scholarly “public choice” view that public officials were motivated mainly be self-interest. Instead, Rom argues that politicians and bureaucrats generally acted in the “public spirit” by attempting to obtain the common interest as they saw it. Using new evidence and innovative methods, Rom demonstrates that FSLIC's failure unfolded because of commitments that officials had made in the past and their uncertainties about how to fulfill these obligations in the future.