Sam Peltzman – författare

The essays in this collection are central to the modern canon in political economy. These ten articles and an introduction respond to two broad questions: How does government work? How do voters and their elected representatives make decisions? Sam Peltzman responds to the media's negative portrayal of the cynical political atmosphere in America, suggesting the electorate really does make well-informed decisions and elected officials actually do tend to vote according to their constituents' interests. These conclusions bear the stamp of the Chicago approach to political economy (which applies microeconomic principles to political phenomena), an approach that has had considerable success explaining why certain government policies have not achieved their intended effects.

This is the first book to use economic theory in the analysis of all the different aspects of organised crime: the origins, the internal organisation, market behaviour and deterrence policies. The theory of rent-seeking is adopted to help understand the origin of criminal organisations from a state of anarchy, while modern industrial organisation theory is used to explain the design of internal rules in the organised crime sector. The market behaviour of organised crime is analysed taking into account its double nature of competitive firm and of monopolist on rule-making. Finally, the 'crime and economics' approach is applied to the analysis of corruption that occurs when the organised crime sector and the government collude to exploit their monopoly on rule-making. This book provides a careful balance between theoretical and institutional or empirical contributions. Each chapter outlines the normative results of the analysis in order to design more sophisticated deterrence policies.

A Brookings Institution Press and American Enterprise Institute publicationAlthough the airline, railroad, telecommunications, and electric power industries are at very different stages in adjusting to regulatory reform, each industry faces the same critical public policy question: Are policymakers taking appropriate steps to stimulate competition or are they turning back the clock by slowing the process of deregulation? This volume addresses that issue and identifies the next steps that policymakers should take to enhance public welfare in the provision of these services. Each chapter identifies the central policy issues that have arisen in each industry as it undergoes transformation to a deregulated environment. The authors reveal the flaws in the residual regulations and make the case for faster and more comprehensive deregulation. A concluding chapter identifies how interest groups continue to exert influence on regulatory agencies and on Congress, potentially undermining deregulation. The papers included here were initially presented in December 1999 at a conference sponsored and organized by the AEI–Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies.