Abstract
In this chapter we discuss various proposals to reform government policy and process. The motivation for the reforms is resolving the fiscal crisis discussed in previous chapters. The fiscal crisis is the major issue facing the governments of developed countries during the twenty-first century. The crisis is connected with the important economic phenomena of the century, including aging of the population, slowing of long-run economic growth, and rising wage inequality. Our discussion is focused primarily on the U.S., but most of the discussion applies to the OECD countries generally.
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Notes
- 1.
Galor (2011, pp. 46–54).
- 2.
Kotlikoff and Burns (2012, pp. 14–15).
- 3.
Lindert (2004, pp. 193–195).
- 4.
Cost (2015, pp. 235–237).
- 5.
Kotlikoff and Burns (2012, p. 20). One response to an aging population is to encourage immigration. However, many richer countries push back against more liberal immigration because people believe it lowers wages of low skilled natives and threatens “national identity.” Instead some countries have tried to reverse aging by encouraging fertility through various government subsidies that support marriage and childbearing (e.g. see Emont 2020).
- 6.
Pauly (2014, p. 20).
- 7.
Sheiner (2014).
- 8.
Gruber (2011).
- 9.
Kotlikoff and Burns (2012, p. 131).
- 10.
- 11.
Sheiner (2014, Figure 4a).
- 12.
Gordon (2016, Figure 1–2).
- 13.
OECD (2015, Table A1).
- 14.
See, for example, Brynjolfsson and McAfee (2014).
- 15.
- 16.
Kotlikoff (2015, Chart 2).
- 17.
Dobrescu et al. (2012).
- 18.
- 19.
Aghion et al. (2013).
- 20.
Vijg (2011).
- 21.
OECD (2015, pp. 51–52).
- 22.
OECD (2014, Figure 2).
- 23.
- 24.
- 25.
Turner (2004, Figure 1.5).
- 26.
National Center for Education Statistics (2015).
- 27.
NSC Research Center (2015).
- 28.
- 29.
Bennet and Wilezol (2013, Chapter 4).
- 30.
Bennet and Wilezol (2013, p. 139).
- 31.
Bennet and Wilezol (2013, p. 146).
- 32.
- 33.
- 34.
Heckman et al. (2010).
- 35.
Carneiro and Heckman (2005).
- 36.
Cingano (2014).
- 37.
OECD (2014).
- 38.
Autor (2014).
- 39.
- 40.
Steuerle (2014, p. 110).
- 41.
- 42.
- 43.
Kotlikoff and Burns (2012, Figure 4.2).
- 44.
Gokhale et al. (1996).
- 45.
Gokhale (2014, p. 77).
- 46.
- 47.
- 48.
Kotlikoff (2015).
- 49.
Auerbach et al. (2004).
- 50.
- 51.
Clarke et al. (2015).
- 52.
Perry (2013).
- 53.
- 54.
See, for example, the survey in Stupak and Marples (2016).
- 55.
Carneiro et al. (2011).
- 56.
- 57.
- 58.
- 59.
- 60.
See Heckman et al. (2010), Heckman et al. (2013), and Garcia et al. (2020). These studies evaluate small-scale programs. The results in Walters (2015) and Attanasio et al. (2017a) indicate that large-scale pre-school programs, if properly structured, can also have lasting positive effects on cognitive and non-cognitive skills.
- 61.
- 62.
Germany, in addition to having a well-respected vocational training system that serves about half of their students, performs well on basic reading and math skills of its young workforce (Lynch (2005)). See Trines (2018) for a discussion of how the German system might be used as a model for the U.S. For labor shortages in occupations not requiring a college education see Coster (2010), Duncan (2017), and Collins (2018).
- 63.
- 64.
- 65.
See also the long-term budgeting plan proposed by Stuart Butler (2016).
- 66.
See Joyce (2011) for a history of the CBO and a discussion of its role in policy making.
- 67.
- 68.
Kotlikoff (2003).
- 69.
- 70.
- 71.
Bueno de Mesquita and Smith (2012, Chapter 7).
- 72.
Clemens and Kremer (2016).
- 73.
- 74.
Ingram (2016).
- 75.
Ivanyna et al. (2016) simulates the effects of cracking down on tax evasion before first dealing with corruption.
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Ivanyna, M., Mourmouras, A., Rangazas, P. (2021). The Political Economy of Fiscal Reforms. In: The Macroeconomics of Corruption. Springer Texts in Business and Economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67557-8_8
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