Donald R. Stabile - Böcker

Based on extensive primary source analysis and in-depth interviews with key figures in the field of public debt administration and policy development, this volume presents a comprehensive history of the U.S. public debt from 1775--when the first debt was incurred to finance the Revolutionary War--to the present. The authors document how the public debt has accumulated and review the methods the government has employed to manage and administer it. They describe the impact of wars, depressions, and macroeconomic policy on the growth of the debt and detail how the handling of the debt was linked to the evolution of the banking system. Their goal throughout is to put the current debt situation into historical perspective, providing an objective evaluation of both the current levels of debt growth and the effectiveness of debt management policies and administration.Following an introductory chapter, the study is arranged chronologically and begins with three chapters which describe the management of the public debt through 1900--a period during which the public debt was relatively small and its management simple. The debt was small, the authors show, because prevailing attitudes toward public finance fostered a fiscal system that relied on balanced budgets, except in wartime. The remaining chapters focus on twentieth century debt growth, administration, and management. A shift in policy away from balanced budgets and a public attitude of less concern about payment of the public debt have made federal budget deficits the norm, the authors demonstrate, and such running deficits require complex debt administration measures. The evolution of the system of debt management and administration that is coordinated by the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve, and the Bureau of Public Debt is a major focus of these chapters. Challenging the views of many analysts and observers, the authors conclude that the recent growth of the public debt is no greater than that which has occurred in other periods, and that government policies of debt management and administration have been effective and timely and have made good use of modern technology. An important contribution to the literature of economic history, this book will also be of significant interest to scholars in economic policy, economic theory, and public policy.

This interesting work presents a unique perspective on the history of economic thought by showing that classical economists from Adam Smith to Alfred Marshall had sympathy for workers - for example, the theory of the subsistence wage echoed the theological call for a just wage that existed in the middle ages. It also describes how these thinkers promoted either a set of social obligations or a form of social insurance to assist workers. These economic thinkers of the past argued that a subsistence standard of living was important to maintain and improve workers' efficiency and to raise healthy families. The notion that these writers had an undeveloped theory of social costs that they applied to labor should appeal to economists and others concerned with the plight of workers as the modern economy restructures itself.

An examination of an early version of the debate over money, debt, and taxes sheds light on current debates regarding public finance, a balanced budget, and paying off the public debt. Stabile shows that while special interest lobbying during the constitutional convention produced tax loopholes as part of the Constitution, determined leaders were able to get a reluctant population used to paying taxes and were capable of putting together plans of public finance that attained their goals. Such historical evidence challenges the view that political leaders are incapable of passing the unpopular taxes needed to balance the federal government's budget and pay off the public debt.Taking a political economy approach that describes how political leaders took economic ideas and made them work, this book combines intellectual history with economic history. Previous books on public finance history have focused on economic issues regarding taxes. Exploring the intellectual history of the debates over money, debt, and taxes as the three potential forms of public finance, Stabile provides insight into the constitutional debate alive at the end of the 20th century.

Throughout history human beings have formed communities spontaneously with residences constructed haphazardly. Today a new type of community is emerging—one planned from the start regarding housing location, style, and governance. These Community Associations (CAs) have increased in number from 500 in 1960 to 205,000 in 1998. This book explores the issues surrounding this housing innovation and provides a history of community associations and their membership organization, the Community Associations Institute (CAI).The book explores the process of trial and error in the design of CAs and how the CAI was set up to help them work. It opens with a consideration of the economics of land, housing, and community associations; explores the social, intellectual, legal background for CAs; and surveys their development in the United States. After considering the FHA's role, the book focuses on the development of the CAI .

First Published in 1994. Sol Barkin was never an elected official in the trade union movement, but for twenty-six years, from 1937 until he retired in 1963. His role also saw him serve on government advisory bodies, originate public policy in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, lead the Industrial Relations Research Association, and teach in an American university.

First Published in 1994. Sol Barkin was never an elected official in the trade union movement, but for twenty-six years, from 1937 until he retired in 1963. His role also saw him serve on government advisory bodies, originate public policy in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, lead the Industrial Relations Research Association, and teach in an American university.

Markets, Planning and the Moral Economy examines the rise of the Progressive movement in the United States during the early decades of the 20th century, particularly the trend toward increased government intervention in the market system that culminated in the establishment of President Roosevelt's New Deal programs. The authors consult writings from politicians, business leaders, and economists of the time, using a variety of historical perspectives to illuminate the conflicting viewpoints that arose as the country struggled to recover from the worst economic downturn in its history.This fascinating historical study explores the conflict between what the authors identify as two competing ideologies: the market economy, whose proponents advocated a hands-off approach and a trust in allowing the markets to adjust themselves, and the moral economy, whose supporters favored a system of government planning and stewardship designed to promote economic fairness. Presenting arguments from each side by public figures and intellectuals, this book offers the most thorough and complete analysis to date of the new economic discourse that arose during the Progressive movement and remains a vital component of our economic and political discussions today. Professors and students of economics, political science, public policy, and history will all find much to admire in this fascinating and accessible volume. Scholars from across the world will also find this book helpful in contemplating the long-term effects that the tension between the market economy and the moral economy can have on an individual country s economic system.

The economists who began using statistics to analyze financial markets in the 1950s have been credited with revolutionizing the scholarship of investing and with inaugurating modern financial economics. By examining the work of economists who used statistics to analyze financial markets before 1950, Donald Stabile provides evidence about the forerunners of modern financial economics.In studying these predecessors, this innovative book reveals that, starting around 1900, there were economists in the United States who believed that changes in stock prices could be treated as a random variable to be analyzed with statistical methods, and who used early versions of the efficient markets theory to justify their belief. Although they did not call themselves Bayesians, the author explores how they adhered to a philosophy consistent with Bayesian statistics. An epilogue considers the linkages between the forerunners of modern finance, its innovators and modern successors.An original work in the history of economic thought, Forerunners of Modern Financial Economics will be of great interest to both economists and historians interested in the development of statistical finance and economic thought, as well as to statisticians, financial analysts, and advanced undergraduate and graduate students studying financial economics.

Donald Stabile places current concerns over the commercialization of academia in a historical context by describing the long-standing question of the extent to which market economics can and should be applied to higher education. The debate between Plato and Aristotle on one side and sophists on the other provides a foundation for the modern debate of endowment versus tuition models. The author tackles the intellectual discourse over the mission of higher education and the effect markets and competition might have on it. The discussion encompasses the ideas on higher education of leading economic thinkers such as Adam Smith, Jeremy Benthan, John Stuart Mill, Alfred Marshall, Thorstein Veblen and John K. Galbraith and identifies them as supporters of either sophism or virtue. Included, too, are the thoughts of educators and policymakers influenced by free market ideas, such as Benjamin Rush, Francis Wayland and Charles W. Eliot, as well as those opposed to them. In addition, the author explores the development of collegiate business schools in the US and how they were justified on the basis of virtue. The book concludes with a section on for-profit colleges and their relationship to sophism.This fascinating study of the centuries-old intellectual debate over the mission of academia will appeal to all those involved with higher education. Historians of economic thought will find the influence of economic ideas on this debate of great interest.

For the last decade a movement for providing workers with a living wage has been growing in the US. This book describes how great thinkers in the history of economic thought viewed the living wage and highlights how the ideas of the early economists such as Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill support the idea of a living wage and contrast with the ideas of more recent free-market economists who do not. The lessons we can learn from the contrasting ideas of both the early and recent economists will help us to think more clearly about the issues surrounding whether, how and why workers should be paid a living wage.The book reviews the history of economic ideas related to the idea of the living wage. It presents a debate between two ideologies, the moral economy and the market economy, as captured by the need to sustain the workforce, enhance its capability and avoid the externality effects of low wages. It is unique in that it applies these concepts exclusively to labor. The book also breaks new ground by presenting Adam Smith as a moral economist who anticipated many of the arguments set forth by modern day advocates of the living wage. It shows how successive economic thinkers added to Smith's arguments for a living (subsistence) wage or found fault with those arguments. Throughout the book Donald Stabile draws out the lessons that this history of the economic thought about adequate wages has for the modern living wage movement.Economists interested in the history of economic thought and labor issues will find this book a compelling read, as will academics and community groups advocating for a living wage.

The author argues that macroeconomic policy in the USA consisted of a dual approach of using a living wage to increase consumption with higher wages, and fiscal policy to create jobs and higher levels of consumption, therefore forming a hybrid system of redistributive economics.