The contributors to this book challenge the conventional wisdom of both free market and big government approaches to economic policy. They argue that policies that foster economic equality can also promote economic efficiency and growth. The record of "trickle down" economic policies is examined, and a new perspective is developed that recognizes that markets have an important role to play, but only within the framework of macroeconomic stability, corrections of market failures, and egalitarian rules of the game.
Contents
Part I. Introduction: 1. Macroeconomic policies for sustainable growth Gerald Epstein and Herbert Gintis; 2. Stability, in egalitarianism and stagnation: an overview of the advanced capitalist countries in the 1980s Andrew Glyn; Part II. Savings, Investment and Employment: 3. Putting the horse (back) before the cart: disentangling the macro relationship between investment and saving David M. Gordon; 4. US national saving and budget deficits Robert Eisner; 5. Wages, aggregate demand, and employment in an open economy: a theoretical and empirical investigation Samuel Bowles and Robert Boyer; PART III. The Determinants of Investment: Profits, Demand, Debt, and Expectations: 6. Investment and profitability: the evidence from the advanced capitalist countries V. Bhaskar and Andrew Glyn; 7. Expectations and investment: an economic defense of animal spirits Christopher Heye; 8. Private investment and debt overhang in Latin America Manuel Pastor; Part IV. Finance and Accumulation: Efficiency and Instability: 9. Financial innovation, deregulation, and Minsky cycles Peter Skott; 10. Financial liberalization, capital rationing, and the informal sector in developing countries J. Mohan Rao; 11. International profit rate equalization and investment: an empirical analysis of integration, instability, and enforcement Gerald A. Epstein; 12. Growth, distribution, and the rules of the game: left structuralist macro foundations for a democratic economic policy David Gordon; 13. A dual agency approach to state and market Gerald Epstein and Herbert Gintis; 14. Escaping the efficiency equity trade-off: productivity-enhancing asset redistributions Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis.
Review
"This book deserves careful study both by those who believe in the conservative macro policy consensus and by those who question it, both of whom will be stimulated by this volume to do more research either to test or extend the results published here." Robert A. Blecker, Journal of Economiv Litertaure
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