Blank considers how the flexibility of U.S. labor markets and the regulation and redistribution policies of European labor markets may determine employers' responses to worldwide economic transformations that result in increasing wage disparity in the United States and continuing high...

Central bankers and many economists have abandoned "activist" policies and monetarism and adopted in their place a new view of the role of monetary policy. This view draws on many of the tenets of more traditional theories of money-monetarism's emphasis inflation control and skepticism about the...

The current system of tax-exempt bond financing is inefficient and inequitable because a large portion of the federal subsidy provided by the tax exemption does not reach state and local governments and accrues instead to the wealthiest investors. In addition, the current system excludes large...

Despite seven years of economic growth a large gap exists in the wages earned by workers at the top of the earnings scale and those at the bottom. The leading explanation for this growth in wage inequality continues to be the skills-mismatch theory. This theory in part posits that gains in...

The Federal Reserve currently has two legislated goals--price stability and full employment--but a debate continues about making price stability the Fed's primary and overriding goal. Evidence from the recent history of monetary policy contradicts arguments in favor of assigning primacy to...

Union strength is capable of boosting wages for workers at the low end of the income scale. Even when differences in education and industry type are accounted for, workers in right-to-work states have a greater probability of earning close to the minimum wage than workers in states with...

HMO medicine sets up an inevitable conflict between the physicians' traditional fiduciary role and the financial interests of the health plan and its physicians. Regulatory interventions, such as the formulation of rules regarding clinical practice, put government in a micromanagement role it...

Howell argues that the collapse of low-skill wages in the United States cannot be explained by a skill mismatch resulting from a technology-driven decline in the for low-skill labor. He presents evidence refuting the prevailing belief that a substantial shift in demand away from low-skill work...

Mikesell outlines the activities of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank over their history and evaluates their success in meeting their original and subsequent goals. He analyzes the debate over the IMF's role in managing the international monetary system, managing currency...

Asia presents a cumulation of apparently rational decisions that produced disastrous results- a textbook illustration of "financial instability" developing from the economics of euphoria. A combination of factors produced the crisis as enormous capital inflows were drawn to the "Asian...