Understanding American Economic Decline [Paperback]

Essays by leading scholars present a novel and systematic analysis of the economic difficulties confronting the United States.The public has been painfully aware of the economy's stagnation for a long time. Underlying each essay in this major new volume is the premise that the U.S.'s problems can be understood only in a broad historical context--that they arise not from cyclical phenomena, but structural distortions of the economy.The public has been painfully aware of the economy's stagnation for a long time. Underlying each essay in this major new volume is the premise that the U.S.'s problems can be understood only in a broad historical context--that they arise not from cyclical phenomena, but structural distortions of the economy.The public has been painfully aware of the economy's stagnation for a long time. In this major new volume, leading thinkers in the social sciences directly confront the various economic difficulties facing the United States today. Underlying each essay is the premise that these problems can be understood only in a broad historical context--that such difficulties arise not from cyclical phenomena, but from structural distortions in the economy. These essays furnish more than hard-hitting criticisms of the various received economic wisdoms: they offer hope as they formulate new economic approaches and policies for the present and the future.Foreword: writing about the economic future Robert L. Heilbroner; Preface David E. Adler; Acknowledgements; Part I. Historical Perspectives: 1. Understanding American economic decline: the contours of the late-twentieth-century experience Michael A. Bernstein; 2. Chickens home to roost: from prosperity to stagnation in the postwar US economy David M. Gordon; Part II. Institutional and Structural Perspectives: 3. Creating and extracting value: corporate investment behaviour and American economic performance William Lazonick; 4. Financial institutions and contemporary economic performance Jane Knodell; 5lãb