Экономика
Различные книги в жанре Экономика
Environmental Agencies in the United States
Each state's physical environment, economy, and politics demands a unique approach to environmental enforcement. In some states, industry works closely with regulators to construct rules that protect state economic interests. In other states, regulators are more at odds with industry, arguing that there can be no cost placed on access to clean air and water. While we have long-considered powerful legislatures and governors the pilots of environmental enforcement behavior in the states, focusing on elected officials ignores the pivotal role environmental agencies and their employees play in determining the overall direction of environmental policy through day-to-day enforcement decisions—decisions to negotiate with industry or to stand firm. In Environmental Agencies in the United States, the author looks closely at the mandates assigned to environmental agencies and how those mandates mold agency understanding of the purpose of environmental enforcement. In arguing the importance of agency structure, organizational norms, and the mediating effects of state politics, the author crafts a more nuanced explanation of the environmental policy variation that shapes the health of all Americans.
The Uses of Diversity
The author argues for the virtues of diversity in cities, organizations, strategies for development, and human discourse in general. The opening chapter develops the vision of Jane Jacobs (the "diva of diversity") for the development of city regions. Many of the later chapters are based on the author's ten years in the World Bank and Senior Advisor and speechwriter for Joseph Stiglitz. Many of the problems in the World Bank's policies were based on a narrow ideological vision that did not tolerate a diversity of pragmatic approaches to the complex questions of economic and social development. Finally, the narrow social-engineering criterion for evaluating social projects is cost-benefit analysis, and the penultimate chapter develops a logical fallacy in the Kaldor-Hicks Principle that is the theoretical basis for cost-benefit analysis.