"Vito Tanzi offers a truly comprehensive treatment available of the economic role of the state in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries from a historical and world perspective. The book addresses the fundamental question of what governments should do, or have attempted to do, in economic activities in past and recent periods. It also speculates on what they are likely or may be forced to do in future years. Although other recent titles in economics deal with normative theories, public choice theories, welfare state analysis, social protection, and the like, no other book has the same breadth or depth specifically on the state's viable economic role. The author occupies a unique position in global public finance, having served for nearly three decades as a leading fiscal administrator for the International Monetary Fund, financial adviser to 80 countries, and active economic theorist. The investigation assembles a large set of statistical information that should prove useful to policy-makers and scholars in the perennial discussion of government's optimal economic roles. It will become an essential reference work on the analytical borders between the market and the state, and on what a reasonable "exit strategy" from the current fiscal crises should be"--

Economic studies historically have either extolled the virtues of perfect markets or decried the market's shortcomings, proposing that governments correct market failure. This book proposes as a counterweight to these views a theory of nonmarket failure, and examines in great detail the shortcomings of government efforts to replace or to regulate markets. It is an unusually thorough analysis that can be used to make more systematic comparisons between markets and governments and to arrive at more intelligent choices between them.After reviewing the existing theory of market shortcomings, Wolf develops a parallel framework for analyzing the shortcomings of government, elaborating the inherent characteristics of government operations and the problems they present. He then considers how these predictable types of nonmarket failure can be taken into account in improving the formulation of public policy. And he compares market and nonmarket alternatives, both in their theoretical and empirical aspects.Wolf concludes that, while both markets and governments have inherent shortcomings, and the choice between them is never a pure one (real-world situations always involve some combination of the two alternatives), markets do a better job than governments. They are more efficient according to both static and dynamic criteria. With respect to equity and other non-efficiency considerations, however, both markets and governments have strengths and weaknesses. Finally, Wolf points out that government can play an important role in improving and extending the functioning of markets. And, perhaps most controversially, he argues that market forces themselves can play an important role in improving thefunctioning of government. They can reduce the incidence of nonmarket failure by injecting market incentives into government operations.Charles Wolf, Jr. is Dean of the RAND Graduate School of Policy Studies and director of the RAND Corporation's Research Program in International Economic Policy. He was chairman of RAND's Economics Department for 12 years, and has written widely in the fields of economics, defense policy, and foreign policy. A RAND Corporation Research Study.

Vito Tanzi offers a truly comprehensive treatment of the economic role of the state in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries from a historical and world perspective. The book addresses the fundamental question of what governments should do, or have attempted to do, in economic activities in past and recent periods. It also speculates on what they are likely or may be forced to do in future years. The investigation assembles a large set of statistical information that should prove useful to policy-makers and scholars in the perennial discussion of government's optimal economic roles. It will become an essential reference work on the analytical borders between the market and the state, and on what a reasonable 'exit strategy' from the current fiscal crises should be.

When should government intervene in market activity and when is it best to let market forces take their natural course? How does the existing empirical evidence about government performance guide our answers to these questions? In this clear, concise book, Clifford Winston offers his innovative analysis—shaped by thirty years of evidence—to assess the efficacy of government interventions. Markets fail when it is possible to make one person better off without making someone else worse off, thus indicating inefficiency. Governments fail when an intervention is unwarranted because markets are performing well or when the intervention fails to correct a market problem efficiently. Winston concludes from existing research that the cost of government failure may actually be considerably greater than the cost of market failure: "My search of the evidence is not limited to policy failures. I will report success stories, but few of them emerged from my search." The prevalence of market failure is due to a lack of conviction in favor of markets, the inflexibility of intervening government agencies, and political forces that enable certain interest groups to benefit at the expense of society as a whole. Winston suggests that government policy can be improved by making greater use of market-oriented solutions that have already produced benefits in certain situations.

In Government Versus the Market, Roger Middleton provides a comprehensive, interdisciplinary and controversial analysis of how Britain's relative economic decline from the late nineteenth century onwards generated an intense debate about the legitimate roles of government and the market. After a thorough analysis of Britain's long-run economic performance in a comparative context, which emphasizes how the problem of decline is frequently misunderstood, and an account of the long-run forces promoting and constraining government growth, he then charts how the economic role of government evolved in response to decline but produced a mix of macroeconomic and microeconomic policies which proved inadequate for the task. This major study emphasizes the institutional and political constraints to economic modernization and uses the specific characteristics of Britain's predicament, a combination of market failure and impotent state, to explain why by 1979 the burgeoning New Right were able to launch an attack upon big government. Dr Middleton then demonstrates how Britain's subsequent economic performance, while brilliantly propagandized as an economic renaissance, has in fact been lacklustre and why the Conservatives' economic strategy failed to address the underlying problems of decline and to reduce the size of the public sector. Government versus the Market brings an unrivalled historical, empirical and theoretical breadth to our understanding of the last century of British economic history as well as a wealth of material on economic performance and public sector growth, and the fullest bibliography yet published on Britain's economic decline. Comprehensive, authoritative and wide-ranging, this extensive study uses a long-term and comparative framework which draws upon the latest research of economists, historians and political scientists to show why successive governments have been unable to halt Britain's relative economic decline.

Provides a formal theory of nonmarket failure, analyzing such problems as redundant costs, monopoly, frequency of unanticipated externalities, and bureaucracy in such nonmarket institutions as foundations, universities, and government. A theory of market failures is well established in economics, but the same has not been true for the study of nonmarket failures. Markets or Governments remedies this situation by providing a formal theory of nonmarket failure, analyzing such problems as redundant costs, monopoly, frequency of unanticipated externalities, and bureaucracy in such nonmarket institutions as foundations, universities, and government. This new edition updates the data and results contained in the first edition and includes references and applications of the theory to the ongoing process of system transformation in Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe. The discussion of earlier literature that is relevant to the theory of nonmarket failure has been expanded.

Since at least the late 1970s, popular political and economic debates in the United States have often been framed in terms of a choice between “government” and “the market.” In addition, debates have often assumed that “the market” is associated with freedom while government “regulation” or “interference in the market” constitutes oppression.This article begins by making the familiar observation that the distinction between “government” and “the market,” at least when taken at face value, makes no sense. Even idealized laissez-faire markets are creatures of the state and its market-structuring laws, including criminal law and the laws of property, contracts, and torts. Far from being spontaneous natural orders, markets are changeable, politically determined legal constructions. Moreover, there is no single set of rules that constitutes “the free market.” Markets can be designed in any number of ways, often with relatively predictable advantages and disadvantages for different groups. How a state designs markets is inevitably a matter of political choice. There is no natural or politically neutral baseline.These arguments will be familiar to generations of scholars in fields from anthropology to law to the history of economic thought. Within legal academia, attempts to draw attention to the ways in which the state creates markets through legal rules have recurred for over a century, from the legal realist movement, to the critical legal studies movement (CLS), to the flourishing law and political economy movement (LPE) today. Yet the legal institutionalist view of markets as legally constructed has never significantly shaped popular economic debates in the United States.This article has several goals. Above all, it aims to be a resource for readers who are encountering the critique of the “government versus market” distinction for the first time. Not only “pro-market” libertarians, but also contemporary progressives who criticize the economic policies of the last four decades as “free market fundamentalism,” or call for greater “government intervention” to “tame the market,” often assume the validity of the distinction. For those who are unfamiliar with the legal institutionalist view of markets, the article provides an introduction.The concluding section of the article addresses readers who may wonder why rejecting the “government versus market” distinction matters. The section argues that a legal institutionalist reframing of economic debate could help to undermine one of the ideological cornerstones of entrenched economic inequality in the United States: the punitive myth that unequal economic outcomes are best understood as “just deserts” for the efforts of individuals, rather than as the product of a long history of government policies.The article also intervenes in recent debates surrounding the use of the term “neoliberalism.” If “neoliberal” thought distinguishes itself from “laissez-faire” or “classical liberal” thought by its promotion of a “strong state” to defend markets, then, the article argues, the public economic discourse of the “neoliberal era” in the United States was, paradoxically, not neoliberal.Finally, an appendix to the article provides a survey of contemporary legal institutionalist thought across several fields.

The old discussion about 'Market or State' is obsolete. There will always have to be a mix of market and state. The only relevant question is what that mix should look like. How far do we have to let the market go its own way in order to create as much welfare possible for everyone? What is the responsibility of the government in creating welfare? These are difficult questions. But they are also the only interesting questions. That is why they are analysed in this book. The desired mix of market and state is anything but easy to bring about. It is a difficult and sometimes destructive process that is constantly in motion. There are periods in history in which the market gains in importance. During other periods the opposite occurs and the government is everywhere more dominant. The turning points in this pendulum swing typically seem to coincide with disruptive events that test the limits of market and state. Why we experience this dynamic is an important theme in this book. Will the market, which today is allocated a greater and greater role thanks to globalization, run up against its limits? Or do the financial crisis and growing income inequality show that we have already reached those limits? Do we have to brace ourselves for a rejection of the capitalist system? Are we returning to an economy in which the government is running the show? These are important questions this book seeks to answer.

Absent evidence to the contrary, it is usually assumed that US financial markets developed in spite of government attempts to regulate, and therefore laissez faire is the best approach for developing critically important and enduring market institutions. This book makes heavy use of extensive archival sources that are no longer publicly available to describe in detail the discussions inside the CBOT and the often private and confidential negotiations between industry leaders and government officials. This work suggests that, contrary to the accepted story, what we now know of as modern futures markets were heavily co-constructed through a meaningful long-term collaboration between a progressive CBOT leadership and an extremely knowledgeable and pragmatic US federal government. The industry leaders had a difficult time evolving the modern institutions in the face of powerful reactionary internal forces. Yet in the end the CBOT, by co-opting and cooperating with federal officials, led the exchange and Chicago markets in general to a near century of global dominance. On the federal government side, knowledgeable technocrats and inspired politicians led an information and analysis explosion while interacting with industry, both formally and informally, to craft better markets for all.

Choosing between government and market is not a very helpful exercise since both are necessary. This book argues that it is misplaced to dichotomise between government and market failures. Too much attention is generally placed on government failures and not enough on private corporate failures. Failures occur in both public and private corporate spheres. They may be due to lapses in implementation of policies and programmes. Lack of enforcement in developing countries occurs either because rules and norms do not exist or they are poorly enforced. Emphasis on implementation problems highlights the importance of organizations and institutions.