Bibliograph

Economic politics in the United States, the costs of democracy, William R. Keech, Duke University

Type

Label

Economic politics in the United States, the costs of democracy, William R. Keech, Duke University

Language

eng

Index

index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

Economic politics in the United States

Medium

electronic resource

Nature of contents

dictionaries

Oclc number

889246416

Responsibility statement

William R. Keech, Duke University

Series statement

Cambridge Social Sciences eBooks

Sub title

the costs of democracy

Summary

Employing macroeconomic performance as a lens to evaluate democratic institutions, the author uses models of political behavior that allow for opportunism on the part of public officials and shortsightedness on the part of voters to see if democratic institutions lead to inferior macroeconomic performance. We have learned more about how and why democracy can work well or badly in the years since the first edition was published. It was not previously apparent how much the good performance of democracy in the United States was contingent on informal rules and institutions of restraint that are not part of the definition of democracy. Since that first edition, the United States has experienced soaring indebtedness, unintended adverse consequences of housing policy, and massive problems in the financial system. Each of these was permitted or encouraged by the incentives of electoral politics and by limitations on government, the two essential features of democratic institutions.--, Provided by publisher

Creator