The Private Abuse of the Public Interest: Market Myths and Policy Muddles (Chicago Studies in American Politics)

Despite George W. Bush’s professed opposition to big government, federal spending has increased under his watch more quickly than it did during the Clinton administration, and demands on government have continued to grow. Why? Lawrence Brown and Lawrence Jacobs show that conservative efforts to expand markets and shrink government often have the ironic effect of expanding government’s reach by creating problems that force legislators to enact new rules and regulations. Dismantling the flawed reasoning behind these attempts to cast markets and public power in opposing roles, The Private Abuse of the Public Interest urges citizens and policy makers to recognize that properly functioning markets presuppose the government’s ability to create, sustain, and repair them over time.The authors support their pragmatic approach with evidence drawn from in-depth analyses of education, transportation, and health care policies. In each policy area, initiatives such as school choice, deregulation of airlines and other carriers, and the promotion of managed care have introduced or enlarged the role of market forces with the aim of eliminating bureaucratic inefficiency. But in each case, the authors show, reality proved to be much more complex than market models predicted. This complexity has resulted in a political cycle—strikingly consistent across policy spheres—that culminates in public interventions to sustain markets while protecting citizens from their undesirable effects. Situating these case studies in the context of more than two hundred years of debate about the role of markets in society, Brown and Jacobs call for a renewed focus on public-private partnerships that recognize and respect each sector’s vital—and fundamentally complementary—role.

Business & Money

Brown, Lawrence D.

Jacobs, Lawrence R.

Economics

University of Chicago Press

Despite George W. Bush’s professed opposition to big government, federal spending has increased under his watch more quickly than it did during the Clinton administration, and demands on government have continued to grow. Why? Lawrence Brown and Lawrence Jacobs show that conservative efforts to expand markets and shrink government often have the ironic effect of expanding government’s reach by creating problems that force legislators to enact new rules and regulations. Dismantling the flawed reasoning behind these attempts to cast markets and public power in opposing roles, The Private Abuse of the Public Interest urges citizens and policy makers to recognize that properly functioning markets presuppose the government’s ability to create, sustain, and repair them over time. The authors support their pragmatic approach with evidence drawn from in-depth analyses of education, transportation, and health care policies. In each policy area, initiatives such as school choice, deregulation of airlines and other carriers, and the promotion of managed care have introduced or enlarged the role of market forces with the aim of eliminating bureaucratic inefficiency. But in each case, the authors show, reality proved to be much more complex than market models predicted. This complexity has resulted in a political cycle—strikingly consistent across policy spheres—that culminates in public interventions to sustain markets while protecting citizens from their undesirable effects. Situating these case studies in the context of more than two hundred years of debate about the role of markets in society, Brown and Jacobs call for a renewed focus on public-private partnerships that recognize and respect each sector’s vital—and fundamentally complementary—role.

Political Exercise: Active Living, Public Policy, and the Built Environment

The public health benefits of giving city dwellers increased opportunities to lead physically active lifestyles are well known to urban planners, public health scholars, and government officials. Moreover, increases in "active living," such as walking and cycling, help the environment, support local businesses, and reduce traffic congestion, among other advantages. But despite wide agreement that active living is both achievable and valuable, best practices are not easy to implement. In Political Exercise, Lawrence D. Brown presents five case studies of cities that have promoted active living with varying success through a range of approaches. He shows how and why the transformation of a call for public intervention into projects, programs, and policies is inescapably political. Brown argues that in order to implement policies that support active living, their proponents must give communities a sense of ownership of recommended changes in the built environment, filter the public health agenda through a range of public and private organizations, and secure committed political champions. At the intersection of public health and urban planning, Political Exercise offers a framework for scholars, policy makers, and reformers to more productively address both the rationales behind active living and the political strategies that spur change.

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Columbia University Press

The public health benefits of giving city dwellers increased opportunities to lead physically active lifestyles are well known to urban planners, public health scholars, and government officials. Moreover, increases in "active living," such as walking and cycling, help the environment, support local businesses, and reduce traffic congestion, among other advantages. But despite wide agreement that active living is both achievable and valuable, best practices are not easy to implement. In Political Exercise, Lawrence D. Brown presents five case studies of cities that have promoted active living with varying success through a range of approaches. He shows how and why the transformation of a call for public intervention into projects, programs, and policies is inescapably political. Brown argues that in order to implement policies that support active living, their proponents must give communities a sense of ownership of recommended changes in the built environment, filter the public health agenda through a range of public and private organizations, and secure committed political champions. At the intersection of public health and urban planning, Political Exercise offers a framework for scholars, policy makers, and reformers to more productively address both the rationales behind active living and the political strategies that spur change.

Two for Five is the first of a four part series, introducing you to three young brother's coming up in the game on the notorious streets of South Jamaica Queens. Niko, the main character, returns homes after serving a five year bid and is recruited by his childhood partners, Ming and Chase, to manage the cash for this thriving street level operation. With parole on his back, and a high paid lawyer on retainer, caution is thrown to wind as this resolute trio stake claim to the lucrative South Jamaica drug trade. As the money flows, so to does the drama. Violence, intimidations and murder are the trademarks of this crew as they take the game to the next level and bring the noise to anyone who stands in their way.

Two for Five

Literature & Fiction

Genre Fiction

Street Level Publications

Politics and Health Care Organization: HMOs as Federal Policy

Among various health cost containment strategies proposed during the 1970s, none has held more sustained fascination than the health maintenance organization (HMO). For many years, policy analysts in search of market- and incentive-based alternatives to command and control” regulation have argued that medical groups combining prepayment and group practice, and offering comprehensive medical services within a fixed budget, would hold down costs both by their own efficient operations and by the competitive pressures they would apply to the conventional systems.  During the 1970s, three presidents and five Congresses worked to formulate and implement legislation to increase the HMO presence nationwide, with very modest results. Some observers concluded that but for the well-intended but counterproductive efforts of the federal government, HMOs might thrive. Indeed, the Reagan administration has called for an end to direct federal financial involvement in building HMOsthough it has also promised legislation to promote HMOs and a newly competitive health care system based on revamped financial incentives and reinvigorated markets.  In this book, Lawrence D. Brown, a senior fellow in the Brookings Governmental Studies program, examines the interplay between politics and policy in the federal HMO development effort between 1970 and 1980. He argues that the basic explanation for the disappointments of the policy analysts and federal supporters of HMOs lies not in a political miscarriage but in the overambitious promises of the policy strategy itself. Tracing the poor fit between policy and politics revealed by federal efforts to translate the attractive HMO idea into a workable strategy, Brown concludes that the episode augurs poorly for the competitive reforms frequently offered as a nonregulatory solution to rising health care costs in the 1980s.

Politics and Health Care Organization: Hmos As Federal Policy

Brookings Inst Pr

New Policies, New Politics: Government's Response to Government's Growth

Politics & Government

The design and use of federal grants-in-aid to state and local governments have posed policy choices for every presidential administration since that of Lyndon B. Johnson. The papers in this volume describe the decisions these administrations have made, analyze why only some of these choices prevailed politically, and explain how large amounts of federal aid have affected local governments.These studies mark the final chapter in a major research effort carried out by the Brookings Governmental Studies program to evaluate the effects of general revenue sharing and other broad-based forms of aid that were introduced in the early 1970s.Kenneth T. Palmer traces the major steps in the evolution of grants-in-aid since the Johnson administration. Lawrence D. Brown's essay on the politics of devolution examines the successes and failures of innovative grant policies such as revenue sharing and block grants. James W. Fossett, writing on the politics of dependence, analyzes the effect of the massive expansion of federal grants to the large cities in the 1970s.

The Changing Politics of Federal Grants

Palmer, Kenneth T.

Fossett, James W.

Brookings Institution Press

Fundamentals of Statistical Exponential Families (Ims Lecture Notes-Monograph Ser.: Vol.9)

Science & Math

Mathematics

Inst of Mathematical Statistic

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