People passionately disagree about the nature of the globalization process. The failure of both the 1999 and 2003 World Trade Organization's (WTO) ministerial conferences in Seattle and Cancun, respectively, have highlighted the tensions among official, international organizations like the WTO, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, nongovernmental and private sector organizations, and some developing country governments. These tensions are commonly attributed to longstanding disagreements over such issues as labor rights, environmental standards, and tariff-cutting rules. In...

As awareness of the process of globalization grows and the study of its effects becomes increasingly important to governments and businesses (as well as to a sizable opposition), the need for historical understanding also increases. Despite the importance of the topic, few attempts have been made to present a long-term economic analysis of the phenomenon, one that frames the issue by examining its place in the long history of international integration.
This volume collects eleven papers doing exactly that and more. The first group of essays explores how the process of globalization can...

Economic growth, low inflation, and financial stability are among the most important goals of policy makers, and central banks such as the Federal Reserve are key institutions for achieving these goals. In "Asset Prices and Monetary Policy," leading scholars and practitioners probe the interaction of central banks, asset markets, and the general economy to forge a new understanding of the challenges facing policy makers as they manage an increasingly complex economic system.
The contributors examine how central bankers determine their policy prescriptions with reference to the fluctuating...

Not-for-profit organizations play a critical role in the American economy. In health care, education, culture, and religion, we trust not-for-profit firms to serve the interests of their donors, customers, employees, and society at large. We know that such firms don't try to maximize profits, but what do they maximize?
This book attempts to answer that question, assembling leading experts on the economics of the not-for-profit sector to examine the problems of the health care industry, art museums, universities, and even the medieval church. Contributors look at a number of different...

The future of Social Security is troubled, both in the United States and in most other developed countries with aging populations. As improvements in health care and changes in life styles enable retirees to live longer than ever before, the stress on national budgets will increase substantially. In "Social Security Programs and Retirement around the World," Jonathan Gruber, David A. Wise, and experts in many countries examine the consequences of reforming retirement benefits in a dozen nations.
Drawing on the work of an international group of noted economists, the editors argue that...

Aspiring college students and their families have many options. A student can attend an in-state or an out-of-state school, a public or private college, a two-year community college program or a four-year university program. Students can attend full-time and have a bachelor of arts degree by the age of twenty-three or mix college and work, progressing toward a degree more slowly. To make matters more complicated, the array of financial aid available is more complex than ever. Students and their families must weigh federal grants, state merit scholarships, college tax credits, and college...

Despite recent corporate scandals, the United States is among the world s least corrupt nations. But in the nineteenth century, the degree of fraud and corruption in America approached that of today s most corrupt developing nations, as municipal governments and robber barons alike found new ways to steal from taxpayers and swindle investors. In Corruption and Reform, contributors explore this shadowy period of United States history in search of better methods to fight corruption worldwide today.
Contributors to this volume address the measurement and consequences of fraud and...

Americans are living longer and staying healthier longer than ever before. Despite the rapid disappearance of pensions and health care benefits for retirees, older people are healthier and better off than they were twenty years ago. In "Health at Older Ages," a distinguished team of economists analyzes the foundations of disability decline, quantifies this phenomenon in economic terms, and proposes what might be done to accelerate future improvements in the health of our most elderly populations.
This breakthrough volume argues that educational attainment, high socioeconomic status, an...

The baby boom generation's entry into old age has led to an unprecedented increase in the elderly population. The social and economic effects of this shift are significant, and in "Research Findings in the Economics of Aging," a group of leading researchers takes an eclectic view of the subject. Among the broad topics discussed are work and retirement behavior, disability, and their relationship to the structure of retirement and disability policies.
While choices about when to retire are made by individuals, these decisions are influenced by a set of incentives, including retirement...

When firms and people are located near each other in cities and in industrial clusters, they benefit in various ways, including by reducing the costs of exchanging goods and ideas. One might assume that these benefits would become less important as transportation and communication costs fall. Paradoxically, however, cities have become increasingly important, and even within cities industrial clusters remain vital.
Agglomeration Economics brings together a group of essays that examine the reasons why economic activity continues to cluster together despite the falling costs of moving...