NBER Reporter: Spring 2000

Bureau Books

Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 14

Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 14, edited by James M. Poterba, Director of the NBER's Program on Public Economics and professor of economics at MIT, will be available from the MIT Press this spring. This series of annual volumes presents recent research on the effects of taxation and government expenditure programs on economic performance. The topics covered in this volume include: the taxation of executive compensation; internet commerce, tax sensitivity, and the generation gap; stock market reaction to capital gains tax changes; estate taxes and the timing of parental giving; the fiscal effects of U.S. immigration; and the consequences of welfare aid to children with working families.

This volume should be accessible to tax practitioners and policymakers as well as to academic economists. It is priced at $40.00 for the clothbound and $20.00 for the paperback edition and may be ordered directly from the MIT Press.

NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1999

NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1999, edited by Ben S. Bernanke and Julio Rotemberg, is also available from the MIT Press this spring. The goals of this annual conference are to present, extend, and apply frontier work in macroeconomics and to stimulate work by macroeconomists on policy issues. The topics covered in the 1999 conference volume are: liquidity crises in emerging markets; the IMF approach to economic stabilization; the Japanese banking crisis; stock prices and fundamentals; labor market policies in an equilibrium search model; and, two decades of decline in the U.S. saving rate.

Both editors are NBER Research Associates in the Programs on Economic Fluctuations and Growth and Monetary Economics. Bernanke is also professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University. Rotemberg is professor of business administration at the Harvard Business School.

The volume is priced at $50.00 for the clothbound and $25.00 for the paperback edition. It may be ordered directly from the MIT Press.

The Changing Hospital Industry: Comparing Not-for-Profit and For-Profit Institutions

The Changing Hospital Industry: Comparing Not-for-Profit and For-Profit Institutions, edited by David M. Cutler, is now available from the University of Chicago Press for $53.00. The papers in this volume ask: what determines a hospital's choice of for-profit versus non-profit organization? And, how does that organizational form affect patients and society as a whole?

This volume should interest students of health economics, public finance, hospital management, and health services, but is also relevant to policymakers and to concerned individuals.

Cutler is an NBER Research Associate and an associate professor of economics at Harvard University.

A Prelude to the Welfare State: The Origins of Workers' Compensation

A Prelude to the Welfare State: The Origins of Workers' Compensation, edited by Price V. Fishback and Shawn Everett Kantor, is now available from the University of Chicago Press for $37.50 (clothbound).

Fishback and Kantor challenge widespread historical perceptions, arguing that, rather than being an early progressive victory, workers' compensation succeeded because all relevant parties -- labor and management, insurance companies, lawyers, and legislators -- benefited from the legislation. Their work, one in a series of NBER volumes on Long-Term Factors in Economic Development, is a major reappraisal of the causes and consequences of a movement that changed the nature of social insurance and the American workplace. It should interest labor leaders, policymakers, and students of economic history.

Both Fishback and Kantor are NBER Research Associates in the Program on the Development of the American Economy. Fishback is also professor of economics at the University of Arizona. Kantor is a professor of economics and public administration and policy at the same institution.