Bücher veröffentlicht von Brookings Institution Press

"In the United States, proposals for gasoline tax hikes have consistently met with broad-based congressional opposition. Although such taxes are a common and effective method of conserving energy in other industrialized nations, U.S. policy has traditionally relied on regulatory programs rather than fuel taxes to promote energy efficiency in automotive transportation. This book examines both the political causes and the economic effects of this idiosyncratic policy preference.Moderating the consumption and importation of oil has been an explicit goal of the United States over the past twenty years. Pietro S. Nivola and Robert W. Crandall argue that a higher levy on gasoline would be a more efficient way of achieving this goal than current automotive fuel economy standards. In fact, they find that an additional excise of less than twenty-five cents per gallon over the past dozen years would have conserved more oil than has the existing policy of administering gas mileage requirements for new passenger vehicles. And such a tax, they maintain, would not be as detrimental to the economy as opponents fear, nor as regressive as they claim.Why, then, is there such a strong national resistance to a fuel tax in the United States? And why is there less resistance in other countries? The authors examine the development of motor-fuel excises in Great Britain, France, Germany, Japan, and Canada, and explain the historical and political factors that have led to different national policy orientations.Turning their attention back to the United States, Nivola and Crandall show how regulatory measures have fallen short of their goal and why political barriers to bolder taxation of gasoline remain formidable. They conclude by offering suggestions for new directions in U.S. energy policy at the federal, state, and local level."

"In 1979, after a decade of enormous increases in the price of oil, U.S. influence in the oil-rich Persian Gulf region declined sharply. Early in the year the Iranian revolution replaced the shah, the principal pro-American leader in the region, with rulers hostile to the United States and to its remaining friends around the Gulf. In December Soviet troops moved into Afghanistan, bringing the Soviets closer to the Gulf and the Indian Ocean. In the United States these events spurred the announcement of the Carter Doctrine and the creation of a new military command to handle Gulf crises. Yet the United States established no new fighting forces, and U.S. friends around the Gulf proved less willing than the shah of Iran to host a U.S. military presence. Thus debate has continued about whether and how the United States can secure important interests in the Gulf region.In this book Thomas L. McNaugher offers a military strategy that integrates U.S. forces into the security framework that already exists in the region. He suggests that the United States should encourage Jordan, Pakistan, Great Britain, and others to continue their historical involvement in Gulf security, especially in such areas as internal security where U.S. forces are no better equipped than theirs and where U.S. participation may undermine the legitimacy of local rulers. In turn, the United States should focus on protecting the oil-rich states of the Arabian peninsula from external attack and on deterring further Soviet encroachment in the region. These missions demand an increase in the agility, rather than the size, of U.S. forces. But the more important requirement, McNaugher argues, is for skillfully blending U.S. military strategy into a diplomacy that exploits, rather than needlessly upsets, regional security mechanisms."

"With the rapid deterioration of the U.S. trade balance in the 1980s, the United States was forced to finance deficits by borrowing heavily from the rest of the world. In doing so, the United States went from being the world's largest creditor country to the world's largest debtor, while Japan and West Germany experienced a rise in trade surpluses. Such a shift in international trade flows has had profound effects on the world economy. McKibbin and Sachs address a range of issues involving macroeconomic imbalances in the world economy. Through the use of a new simulation model of the world economy they explore how policy actions undertaken in one country affect the trade flows and macroeconomic patterns among the other counties. The authors show that key macroeconomic features of the 1980s can be explained by shifts in monetary and fiscal policies in the major economies and by supply shocks due to changes in oil prices. In addition to showing how the global macroeconomic experience can be understood, they focus on a number of current policy issues, including the reduction of global trade imbalances, the consequences of U.S. fiscal consolidation, the effects of an oil price shock, the implications for the U.S. economy of increases in Japanese and German fiscal spending, the effects of targeting exchange rates among the major currencies, and the gains of increased coordination of macroeconomic politics among the major economies. In several cases, their conclusions are shown to be quite different from those that form the basis of many conventional views. The authors also analyze the importance of interaction between policymakers in industrial economies and conclude by reemphasizing the need for U.S. politicians and policy experts to recognize that macroeconomic results in the U.S. now depend heavily on events abroad. "

"To consider the problems of high litigation costs and delay that burden both plaintiffs and defendants, average citizens and large corporations, Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr., Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, suggested in August 1988 the formation of a working conference of natural competitors in the legal system. In response, the Brookings Institution and the Foundation for Change invited leading litigators from the plaintiffs' and defense bar; civil and women's rights, consumer, and environmental lawyers; representatives of the insurance industry; general counsels of major corporations; former judges; and law professors from throughout the United States to analyze these issues and develop a set of concrete recommendations for procedural reform.The 36 members of the working group, together with the Rand Corporation's Institute for Civil Justice, which served as a technical consultant, met at Brookings six times between September 1988 and June 1989. In conjunction with the conference, the Foundation for Change commissioned Louis Harris and Associates to conduct a major survey of over 1,000 federal trial judges and litigators on their views about procedural reform.The recommendations in this report are significant not only because they are comprehensive in scope but also because of the diverse group of individuals who stand united behind them. The report reflects a consensus that a comprehensive program for civil justice reform can be successfully implemented and that such reform can significantly reduce litigation costs and delay."

The momentous changes in the Soviet Union brought about by glasnost' and perestroyka have far-reaching implications that continue to grip the attention of the international community. This volume and its companion volume, The Economy, feature research and analysis of the significant events in the development of the revolutionary reforms in the Soviet Union-from the beginning stage, through the period of great euphoria, to the recent troubled times. Ed A. Hewitt, founding editor of Soviet Economy and formerly a senior fellow at Brookings, is now Special Assistant to the President on National Security Affairs and Senior Director of Soviet Affairs at the National Security Council. Victor H. Winston is an adjunct professor of international affairs at George Mason University and coeditor of Soviet Economy.

"In this book, Ed A. Hewett provides a detailed, scholarly guide that analyzes Soviet economic reforms."

Each year, millions of American families struggle with the expense of higher education. For the past fifty years, the U.S. government has helped students and families pay for college; but with the entire domestic policy agenda in flux, federal aid to education hangs in the balance. This book analyzes government policies for helping students pay for education beyond high school. It is being published at a time when aid to education is a prominent issue in battles over the federal budget and policymakers are debating the need for and effectiveness of federal student assistance programs. Starting with the post-World War II GI Bill, the book reviews the 50-year history of federal student aid legislation, assesses the results, and identifies trends and problems that cloud the future of this critically important national effort. The authors draw on the thinking of the country's top experts in examining the rationale and structure of the student aid system and how it might more effectively expand college opportunities while ensuring educational quality. Their analysis encourages policymakers to consider the multiple objectives of government aid-not just getting more students into college, but promoting student success and degree completion. The book offers a framework for future policy debates aimed at improving a system vital to America's economic future and its continued promise of opportunity. Copublished with the College Board / Dialogue on Public Policy

"Oil stands alone among primary commodities in its potential for sending economic shock waves across the world. The value of oil production is one and a half times the world's total production of food grains; demand is unresponsive to price in the short run; and the world's oil resources are heavily concentrated in the Middle East, where political disturbances have been chronic and oil supply is subject to sudden interruption. Together, these factors have made oil a virtual rogue elephant in the world economy since 1973.This book discusses the oil shocks of 1973-74, 1979-80, and the ""minishock"" of 1990-91, and examines the possibility of oil shocks over the next twenty years. The authors assess the world market outlook on the basis of underlying trends on world oil supply and demand. They take into account prospects for investment in oil production in the Persian Gulf states, the former Soviet republics, and Latin America; environmental factors and policies; and political uncertainties in the Middle East."

"This volume is the record of a conference held in March 1989 that centered on a departure from the basic U.S. policy toward the long-standing problem of third world debt.Secretary of the Treasury Nicholas Brady took the occasion of the conference to announce that officially sponsored reduction of debt principal and debt interest should henceforth be an integral part of debt strategy. Promptly labeled the Brady Plan, the secretary's statement has since been the subject of extensive debate at home and abroad. Now that it has been given official sanction, debt service reduction has become an inescapable feature of the ongoing effort to manage and resolve the debt problem.This volume considers the implications of introducing debt and debt service reduction into the preexisting menu of policies and, more specifically, to suggest the conditions under which it can be expected to hasten the removal of the third world debt problem from the international economic agenda."

With job prospects clouded for even the well-educated, those who leave school with no training beyond high school now face great challenges in making the transition from school to work. Emerging research and experience in other countries have led many to believe that the workplace can play a much larger educational role than it now does. The School-to-Work Opportunity Act of 1994, for example, requires programs funded under the act to include educationally guided work placements as part of the educational strategy. Although there is a growing consensus that employers have much to contribute, significant barriers stand in the way of increasing work-based education.This volume, the result of a Brookings conference on employer participation in education, focuses on such questions as: How can an adequate number of employers be recruited? How can the quality of placements be guaranteed? How can discrimination and inequities in providing access to good placements be avoided? What must educators do to work effectively with employers to develop high quality on-the-job educational experiences? And what policies can encourage participation and monitor and improve the education that takes place on the job?The book includes the perspectives of employers, educators, and policymakers and draws lessons from experience with employer involvement in Europe. It concludes with suggestions for future research and policy designed to increase the quality and quantity of work-based education.Chapters were written by editor Thomas Bailey, as well as Paul Osterman, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; David Stern, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development; and Margaret Vickers, Technical Education Research Centers. Comments are included by George Chambliss, Xavier Del Buono, Harry Featherstone, Jack Jennings, Governor John R. McKernan, Jr., Stuart Rosenfeld, Anthony Sarmiento, Bernd Sohngen, Marc S. Tucker, Cheryl Fields Tyler, Peter van den Dool, Joan Wills, and Robert Yurasits. Brookings Dialogues on Public Policy

"In recent years, workers earnings have hardly grown, violence and crime have plagued the inner cities, homelessness and public begging have become commonplace, and family life has greatly deteriorated. With governments facing large deficits and slowly growing revenues, and public distrust in the efficiency of government and elected officials at all-time highs, the authors ask, ""What can government do for you?""This book brings together a prominent group of experts to answer this critical question. Edited by Henry Aaron and Charles L. Schultze, two of the nation's most noted and experienced economists, the book focuses on the crucial domestic and social issues confronting America today.Seven vital areas are discussed by the following contributors: Henry Aaron on health care; Gordon L Berlin and William McAllister on homelessness; Linda R Cohen and Roger G. Noll on research and development; John J. DiIulio, Jr., on crime; Frank Levy and Richard J. Murnane on education and training; Isabel V. Sawhill on children and families; and Clifford M. Winston and Barry P. Bosworth on infrastructure. In each problem area, the authors use the results of research and analysis to identify existing or proposed governmental interventions that are likely to work, as well as some that are likely to fail and some that need to be reformed. They then present a budget proposal that not only pays for suggested changes in domestic policy, but brings the budget into virtual balance in ten years."

"Setting National Priorities continues the highly acclaimed and influential series of books that examine domestic and foreign policy choices confronting the United States. Members of the Brookings staff join outside experts to evaluate America's course through the next decade.In clear and nontechnical terms the contributors explain and evaluate options for the United States in the 1990s, consider whether the federal government's current pollicies are consistent with long-term objectives, and explain what action could best achieve those goals.Charles L. Schultze shows why it is important to solve the problem of the federal budget deficit and how it can be done: John D. Steinbruner addresses the revolution taking place in American foreign policy and explains how the United States can be more secure with lower defense spending; Lawrence J. Korb evaluates President Bush's defense budget and suggests possible improvements; Robert Z. Lawrence describes how the U.S. government and private industry should respond to the competitive challenge from foreign companies; William D. Nordhaus explains the risks form global warming and presents a policy to meet them; John E. Chubb and Eric A. Hanshek chart new directions of American elementary and secondary education; Henry J. Aaron identifies the major problems with the financing of healthcare and describes how they can be solved; and Thomas E. Mann considers how political institutions and public preferences constrain our ability to enact needed policy changes and what might be done to overcome those obstacles."