Kluwer-Nijhoff Studies in Human Issues – serie

The essays in this volume were a challenge to me to write. I am an economist to the core, inclined to evaluate most observed behavior and public policies with conventional neoclassical theory. The essays represent my attempt to come to grips with the meaning and importance of what I try to do as a professional economist. They reflect my attempt to acquire a new and improved understanding of the usefulness and limitations of the writings of professional economists, especially my own. In this regard, although I hope others will find the thoughts useful, the volume represents a personal statement of how one economist views his and others' work. For that reason the discussion is often openly normative, tinged with the conviction that social discourse is more than costs and benefits and that economics cannot be fully evaluated by the methods - economic methods - that are the subject of the evaluation. These essays could not have been written without considerable encouragement and help from colleagues and friends. The following people are recognized for having read one or more chapters and for having contributed critical, substantive comments: Diana Bailey, Wilfred Beckerman, Geoffrey Brennan, William Briet, James Buchanan, Delores Martin, David Maxwell, Mary Ann McKenzie, Warren Samuels, Robert Staaf, Richard Wagner, Karen Vaughn, and Bruce Yandle. I am very much in their debt. However, they should not be held accountable for any of the positions taken and any errors that may remain.

The essays in this volume were a challenge to me to write. I am an economist to the core, inclined to evaluate most observed behavior and public policies with conventional neoclassical theory. The essays represent my attempt to come to grips with the meaning and importance of what I try to do as a professional economist. They reflect my attempt to acquire a new and improved understanding of the usefulness and limitations of the writings of professional economists, especially my own. In this regard, although I hope others will find the thoughts useful, the volume represents a personal statement of how one economist views his and others' work. For that reason the discussion is often openly normative, tinged with the conviction that social discourse is more than costs and benefits and that economics cannot be fully evaluated by the methods - economic methods - that are the subject of the evaluation. These essays could not have been written without considerable encouragement and help from colleagues and friends. The following people are recognized for having read one or more chapters and for having contributed critical, substantive comments: Diana Bailey, Wilfred Beckerman, Geoffrey Brennan, William Briet, James Buchanan, Delores Martin, David Maxwell, Mary Ann McKenzie, Warren Samuels, Robert Staaf, Richard Wagner, Karen Vaughn, and Bruce Yandle. I am very much in their debt. However, they should not be held accountable for any of the positions taken and any errors that may remain.

A few decades ago a monograph on the legal aspects of population control would have looked mainly at legal prohibitions. The salient legal problems were restriction of the use of birth control and dissemination of information about it. The assumption in such an approach would have been that effective population control is legally affected only by the clearly stated restrictions in the law. In other respects, the law could be assumed to be neutral. Judicial and legislative changes have eliminated practically all restrictions on the means of contraception. This development, how­ ever, has not freed population from its relation to the law; on the contrary, it has exposed the importance of law as a motivating force for and against population control. Although much applied work in population control is directed toward the distribution of contracep­ tives, concentration on the means of population control has shown itself to be of doubtful value. From many sides the primary impor­ tance of motivation has been recognized, along with the need to influence motivation and to analyze the conditions under which motivational change is possible. At this point the role of the law ix X FOREWORD becomes apparent, along with the recognition that law has not been neutral in this issue-that, in fact, it cannot be neutral. Larry Barnett has undertaken a pioneering effort in identifying the areas of law important to changing people's motivations in regard to population control and to a reduction in individual family size.