BiblioVault - Books about American Economy

The American Economy in Transition

Edited by Martin Feldstein

University of Chicago Press, 1980

This unusual volume marks the sixtieth anniversary of the National Bureau of Economic Research. In contrast to the technical and specialized character of most NBER studies, the current book is designed to provide the general reader with a broad and critical overview of the American economy. The result is a volume of essays that range from monetary policy to productivity development, from population change to international trade.

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The Defining Moment

The Great Depression and the American Economy in the Twentieth Century

Edited by Michael D. Bordo, Claudia Goldin, and Eugene N. White

University of Chicago Press, 1997

In contemporary American political discourse, issues related to the scope, authority, and the cost of the federal government are perennially at the center of discussion. Any historical analysis of this topic points directly to the Great Depression, the "moment" to which most historians and economists connect the origins of the fiscal, monetary, and social policies that have characterized American government in the second half of the twentieth century. In the most comprehensive collection of essays available on these topics, The Defining Moment poses the question directly: to what extent, if any, was the Depression a watershed period in the history of the American economy? This volume organizes twelve scholars' responses into four categories: fiscal and monetary policies, the economic expansion of government, the innovation and extension of social programs, and the changing international economy. The central focus across the chapters is the well-known alternations to national government during the 1930s. The Defining Moment attempts to evaluate the significance of the past half-century to the American economy, while not omitting reference to the 1930s.

The essays consider whether New Deal-style legislation continues to operate today as originally envisioned, whether it altered government and the economy as substantially as did policies inaugurated during World War II, the 1950s, and the 1960s, and whether the legislation had important precedents before the Depression, specifically during World War I. Some chapters find that, surprisingly, in certain areas such as labor organization, the 1930s responses to the Depression contributed less to lasting change in the economy than a traditional view of the time would suggest. On the whole, however, these essays offer testimony to the Depression's legacy as a "defining moment." The large role of today's government and its methods of intervention—from the pursuit of a more active monetary policy to the maintenance and extension of a wide range of insurance for labor and business—derive from the crisis years of the 1930s.

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Government and the American Economy

A New History

Price V. Fishback et al.

University of Chicago Press, 2007

The American economy has provided a level of well-being that has consistently ranked at or near the top of the international ladder. A key source of this success has been widespread participation in political and economic processes. In The Government and the American Economy, leading economic historians chronicle the significance of America’s open-access society and the roles played by government in its unrivaled success story.

America’s democratic experiment, the authors show, allowed individuals and interest groups to shape the structure and policies of government, which, in turn, have fostered economic success and innovation by emphasizing private property rights, the rule of law, and protections of individual freedom. In response to new demands for infrastructure, America’s federal structure hastened development by promoting the primacy of states, cities, and national governments. More recently, the economic reach of American government expanded dramatically as the populace accepted stronger limits on its economic freedoms in exchange for the increased security provided by regulation, an expanded welfare state, and a stronger national defense.

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Pensions in the American Economy

Laurence J. Kotlikoff and Daniel E. Smith

University of Chicago Press, 1984

For anyone with an interest in pensions—workers and employers, personnel directors, accountants, actuaries, lawyers, insurance agents, financial analysts, government officials, and social scientists—this book is required reading. Now, without the aid of a pension specialist, anyone can determine how their particular pension plan stacks up against the average. Using virtually all available government sources (including computerized data unavailable in print) and their own extensive surveys, the authors present a comprehensive description of the structural features and financial conditions of U.S. private, state, city, and municipal pension plans. The introductions to the hundreds of tables explain and highlight the information.

The picture that emerges of the "typical" plan and its significant variations is crucial to all those with a financial stake in pensions. The reader can compare pension vesting, retirement, and benefit provisions by plan type, plan size, industry, union status, and many more characteristics. With this information, workers can evaluate just how generous their employer is; job applicants can compare fringe benefits of prospective employers; personnel directors can judge their competitive edge.

The financial community will find especially interesting the analysis of the unfunded liabilities of private, state, and local pension funds. The investment decisions of private and public pension funds and their return performances are described as well.

Government officials and social scientists will find the analysis of pension coverage, the receipt of pension income by the elderly, cost-of-living adjustments, and disability insurance of special importance in evaluating the proper degree of public intervention in the area of old age income support.

Pensions in the American Economy is comprehensive and easy to use. Every reader, from small-business owners and civil servants to pension fund specialists, will find in it essential information about this increasingly important part of labor compensation and retirement finances.

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Structural Change in the American Economy

Anne P. Carter

Harvard University Press, 1970

Studies on the economics of technological change have only recently become prevalent; nevertheless, the literature is already proliferating at a rate that makes assimilation difficult for the individual scholar. Anne Carter's volume brings to the vast material on production analysis, growth, and economic development the perspective and insights gained through the examination of intermediate inputs and the explanation of structural change in input-output coefficients.

“The present study,” writes the author, “is rooted in the premise that an explicit analysis of changing intermediate input requirements adds more to insight than it does to confusion—particularly in the understanding of technological change... Many practical problems of business and government require an understanding of how, and at what rate, use of plastics or truck transportation or producers' services is changing. Indeed, it is difficult to conceive of studying some central aspects of technical change—such as invention or diffusion of new techniques—without introducing specific intermediate inputs... These are an essential part of the picture. They turn up as variables in questions and answers about our economic system that cannot be discussed at a highly aggregate level. Most important, they are indispensable in bridging the gap between engineering and technical information, on the one hand, and economic description, on the other.”

This work assembles comparable input-output tables for 1939, 1947, and 1958 along with auxiliary information on labor, capital, and final demand for 1939, 1947, 1958, and 1961—data that have not in the past been readily accessible to most students and business analysts. Graphic forms of presentation liberally supplement the basic tables. The study shows how technological change has affected industrial specialization, as well as direct primary inputs, and how these components of change are interrelated. The overall proportion of intermediate to final production saw little change, but systematic shifts appeared in the relative contributions of individual industries. Most structural change resulted from the assimilation of new techniques rather than from classical substitution and, in general, direct laborsaving was large relative to changes in capitol and intermediate requirements.

Carter's study is the first to pursue the question of structural stability and structural change for the United States in detailed, comprehensive, quantitative terms, tying concrete developments in technology to the broader economic picture.

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