Memos to the President

Charles Schultze

doi:10.5771/9780815719038

Summary

When policymakers are in need of economic advice, professional economists are never far away. Policymakers, journalists, and citizens all rely on experts to explain various economic developments and policy proposals. While it is fortunate that experts are close at hand, those concerned with choosing or evaluating economic policies should themselves have an understanding of how the economy works. Unfortunately, many policymakers and interested citizens currently lack such knowledge; and they need to know at the least the basics of macroeconomics to make informed decisions on their own. In this insightful book, Charles L. Schultze employs an imaginative format for explaining to busy policymakers and citizens how the economy works and what issues are likely to affect macroeconomic policy. He imagines that the next president has promised to devote one hour a week to learning about key economic principles and has asked the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers for instruction. The book is written as a series of memos to the president on the principles and policy issues that should be understood before making macroeconomic policy judgements. A former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers himself, Schultze clearly explains the key relationships as a background for policy decisionsrelationships among domestic and foreign economic forces, and government policies and economic outcomes. The memos rely heavily on the use of real-world examples from recent economic events and policy debates. They focus principally on such policy-related issues as inflation, unemployment, long-term economic growth, and the flow of international trade and capital. The series of short, easy-to-read memos is divided into three groups: the first presents the background, explaining why it is particularly important for policymakers to distinguish between those economic forces that affect total demand in the economy and those that affect total supply; the second addresses the problem of economic stability; and the third looks at long-term economic growth.

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2011
ISBN-Print: 978-0-8157-7778-6
ISBN-Online: 978-0-8157-1903-8
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 333
Product type: Book Titles

1. CONTENTS No access
INTRODUCTION No access Pages 1 - 10
1. MEMORANDUM 1 The Supply and Demand for National Output No access
2. MEMORANDUM 2 Supply, Demand, and the Importance of Knowing the Difference No access
3. MEMORANDUM 3 The Nation's Income and Output: The Basic Structure No access
4. MEMORANDUM 4 National Saving and Investment: Why Are They Important? No access
1. MEMORANDUM 5 What Causes Recessions and Booms: An Overview No access
2. MEMORANDUM 6 The Behavior of Consumption Spending No access
3. MEMORANDUM 7 The Behavior of Investment No access
4. MEMORANDUM 8 Interest Rates as a Stabilizing Force—and Why They Are Not Always Sufficient No access
5. MEMORANDUM 9 Exports, Imports, and International Investment No access
6. MEMORANDUM 10 Exchange Rates, the Trade Balance, and the U.S. Economy No access
7. MEMORANDUM 11 Inflation: History, Measurement, and Economic and Political Costs No access
8. MEMORANDUM 12 The Causes of Inflation and the Inflation-Unemployment Trade-off No access
9. MEMORANDUM 13 The Stubbornness of Inflation and Its Consequences No access
10. MEMORANDUM 14 Unemployment: Who, How Long, Why No access
11. MEMORANDUM 15 The Full-Employment Level of Unemployment No access
12. MEMORANDUM 16 Monetary Policy: The Tools of the Federal Reserve No access
13. MEMORANDUM 17 Monetary Policy: What It Can and Cannot Do No access
14. MEMORANDUM 18 Fiscal Policy: The Federal Budget and Its Stabilizing Features No access
15. MEMORANDUM 19 Fiscal Policy: Using the Budget to Influence GNP No access
1. MEMORANDUM 20 The Supply of GNP: The Fundamentals of Long-Term Growth No access
2. MEMORANDUM 21 The Sources of Economic Growth and How Important Each One Is No access
3. MEMORANDUM 22 Saving, Investment, and Capital Formation No access
4. MEMORANDUM 23 Raising National Saving and Investment: A Target for the 1990s No access
5. MEMORANDUM 24 Increasing National Saving and Investment: Some Guiding Principles No access
6. MEMORANDUM 25 Raising National Saving and Investment I: The Economic Consequences No access
7. MEMORANDUM 26 Raising National Saving and Investment II: Tax Changes and Their Effects No access
8. MEMORANDUM 27 Education No access
9. MEMORANDUM 28 Technological Advance No access
1. MEMORANDUM 29 A Summary of These Memos and How They Differ from What Others Might Have Told You No access
1. A No access
2. B No access
3. C No access
4. D No access
5. E No access
6. F No access
7. G No access
8. H No access
9. I No access
10. J No access
11. K No access
12. L No access
13. M No access
14. N No access
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18. S No access
19. T No access