Books in the Federico Caffe Lectures series

Reform of the welfare sector is an important yet difficult challenge for all countries in transition from socialist central planning to market-oriented democracies. Here a scholar of the economics of socialism and post-socialist transition and a health economist take on this challenge. This 2001 book offers health sector reform recommendations for ten countries of Eastern Europe, drawn consistently from a set of explicit guiding principles. After discussing sector-specific characteristics, lessons of international experience, and the main set of initial conditions, the authors advocate reforms based on organized public financing for basic care, private financing for supplementary care, pluralistic delivery of services, and managed competition. Policymakers need to achieve a balance, both assuring social solidarity through universal access to basic health services and expanding individual choice and responsibility through voluntary supplemental insurance. The authors also consider the problems that undermine effectiveness of market-based competition in the health sector.

Augusto Graziani challenges traditional theories of monetary production, arguing that a modern economy based on credit cannot be understood without a focus on the administration of credit flows. A strong exponent of the circulation theory of monetary production, Graziani presents an original and perhaps controversial argument that will stimulate debate on the topic.

Nobel Laureate Robert Solow is widely regarded as one of the greatest living economists. In Monopolistic Competition and Macroeconomic Theory Solow gives a non-technical account of the implications of monopolistic competition on macroeconomic theory and shows that micro-based models can offer the possibility of a richer and more intuitive macroeconomics.

Developing countries represent the greatest challenge of our time. Sylos Labini suggests a strategy of institutional reform. For Africa, he recommends organizational reforms consisting of two European centers to tackle illiteracy, and one to promote rural and industrial districts. Finally, he proposes an international research program to explore problems of underdevelopment.

In Regulation and Development Jean-Jacques Laffont provides the first theoretical analysis of regulation of public services for developing countries. He shows how the debate between price-cap regulation and cost of service regulation is affected by the characteristics of less developed countries (LDCs) and offers a positive theory of privatization that stresses the role of corruption. He develops a new theory of regulation with limited enforcement capabilities and discusses the delicate issue of access pricing in view of LDC's specificities. In the final chapter he proposes a theory of separation of powers which reveals one of the many vicious circles of underdevelopment made explicit by the economics of information. Based on organization theory and history, and using simple empirical tests wherever possible, Professor Laffont offers a comprehensive evaluation of the different ways to organize the regulatory institutions and opens up a rich new research agenda for development studies.

Reciprocity is a crucial part of our social and economic lives, yet until recently it has been somewhat ignored by economists. Serge-Christophe Kolm shows us that reciprocity and altruism play an important role, not just in the micro-economy of the family but also in the macro-economy of the state.

What was the Keynesian revolution in economics? Why did it not succeed to the extent that Keynes and his close pupils hoped for? Keynes and the Cambridge Keynesians addresses these and other questions and attempts to defend Keynesian economics as a viable alternative to mainstream economics.

An economic policy always relies on diagnosis about spontaneous trends and about the likely impact of alternative government decisions. During the last two decades the author devoted most of his time to observation and diagnosis and to the analysis of macroeconomic factors of unemployment. This book presents what was learned from this experience.

Economists warn that policies to level the economic playing field come with a hefty price tag. But this so-called 'equality-efficiency trade-off' has proven difficult to document. The data suggest, instead, that the extraordinary levels of economic inequality now experienced in many economies are detrimental to the economy. Moreover, recent economic experiments and other evidence confirm that most citizens are committed to fairness and are willing to sacrifice to help those less fortunate than themselves. Incorporating the latest results from behavioral economics and the new microeconomics of credit and labor markets, Bowles shows that escalating economic disparity is not the unavoidable price of progress. Rather it is policy choice - often a very costly one. Here drawing on his experience both as a policy advisor and an academic economist, he offers an alternative direction, a novel and optimistic account of a more just and better working economy.

A leading expert on economic policy makes the convincing case for the foundation, coordination and reach of government action through economic policy. Presenting justifications for government intervention in coping with market failures, Acocella applies the theory of economic policy to current global issues.