"A balanced and sophisticated analysis of the true costs, benefits, and consequences of enforcing drug prohibition is presented in this book. Miron argues that prohibition's effects on drug use have been modest and that prohibition has numerous side effects, most of them highly undesirable. In particular, prohibition is shown to directly increase violent crime, even in cases where it deters drug use. Miron's analysis leads to a disturbing finding-the...

At a time when austerity is claimed by some to be the only answer to today's economic woes, a close look at the best practices used in Scandinavia is edifying. Decision makers everywhere dispose of ample evidence showing that social determinants have an impact on health and wellbeing. Yet governments develop policies that diverge enormously. Scandinavian countries are often cited as models for their egalitarian social and health policies but are also...

"Environmental quality has been a major public concern since the first Earth Day in 1970, yet the maze of environmental laws and regulations enacted since then has fostered huge government bureaucracies better known for waste and failure than for innovation and success. Can we do better than this failed environmental bureaucracy? The noted contributors to this volume answer with a resounding "yes." Re-Thinking Green exposes the myths that have contributed...

Appreciating New Zealand's distinctive social policy history is important in formulating future social policies. This is one of the premises in Past Judgement: Social Policy in New Zealand History, which brings together recent research on a range of social policy contexts. --Provided by publisher.

"In Value War: Public Opinion and the Politics of Gay Rights, Paul R. Brewer looks at how the public debate about gay rights has shaped public opinion and conversely how public opinion has shaped the public debate about gay rights. Using a variety of methods, including polls, experimentation, and content analysis, he shows how the nature of public debate_which encompasses news stories, television sitcoms, presidential speeches, and sermons by local...

"The United States of America is in danger of becoming a Third World nation. The evidence is all around us: Our industrial base is vanishing, taking with it the jobs that have formed the backbone of our economy; our education system is in shambles, making it harder for tomorrow's workforce to land good 21st century jobs; our infrastructure is crumbling; our economic system has been reduced to recurring episodes of Corporations Gone Wild; our political...

"Economics is the queen of the social sciences, and economists are among the most prominent of experts in Washington. No other discipline has its own office in the White House, is as visible in the New York Times, or as frequently mentioned in the Congressional Record. Yet at the same time, the limits on economists' influence are quite clear. Their advice is often ignored until it is politically convenient, and as the current moment shows, politicians...

"In Can American Capitalism Survive?, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Steven Pearlstein chronicles our descent and challenges the theories being taught in business schools and exercised in boardrooms around the country. We're missing a key tenet of Adam Smith's wealth of nations: without trust and social capital, democratic capitalism cannot survive. Further, equality of incomes and opportunity need not come at the expense of economic growth."--Amazon.com....

Conservative icon Steve Forbes returns with his most powerful and provocative ideas yet The United States has been through one of the most tumultuous decades in recent history. Polls show people on both sides of the ideological divide believe that the country has gone off track. If something isn't done quickly, Americans face a bleak future-continuing decline and disarray in a world that grows ever more dangerous. Steve Forbes, two-time candidate...

"The U.S. economy has had 25 years of some of the strongest, smoothest growth in its history--economists have even named it: 'the Great Moderation.' So why have so many of us arrived at the new century with a gnawing sense that events are moving against our families and ourselves? Drawing on interviews with hundreds of Americans and new statistics he developed, economics journalist Gosselin traces a quarter-century shift of economic risk from the...