Economic Puppetmasters: Lessons From the Halls of Power - Hardcover

Lindsey, Lawrence B.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0844740810 ISBN 13: 9780844740812

Publisher: Aei Press, 1998

Synopsis

An insider's perspective on the bureaucratic structure of governmental institutions that shape economic policy, and the incentives and limitations of the individuals who head them.

About this title

About the Author

Lawrence B. Lindsey is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. The author of The Growth Experiment: How the New Tax Policy Is Transferring the U.S. Economy (Basic Books, 1990), he served as a governor of the Federal Reserve Board from 1991 to 1997.

Reviews

Despite the title, there are no puppetmasters in Lindsey's view, and the interviews with such figures as Alan Greenspan, Helmut Kohl and George Soros seems more concerned with describing describing the office furniture than the subjects' deep thoughts. Lindsey, a former governor of the Federal Reserve Board, offers a detailed snapshot of the world economy in the autumn of 1998. Its strength is its breadth as Lindsey moves seamlessly back and forth in time, from theory to practice and into every part of the economically developed world. Its weakness is sloppy writing, repetitiveness and an uncritical enthusiasm for the existing shape of the free market. Instead of simply stating that democratic political institutions created undemocratic economic institutions, Lindsey writes: "As a result, each role was demanded by, or at least had its continued existence sanctioned by, the democratic institutions of their respective countries, even though, in many respects, the role being demanded had undemocratic aspects." In the end, this is a partisan work that lays groundwork for a Republican economic platform and rises to the defense of Republicans from Herbert Hoover to Ronald Reagan while offering approving explanations of Milton Friedman-style supply-side economics. Serious students of political economy will overlook the stylistic lapses for the author's rare combination of expertise, experience and access. Moderate Republicans, given Lindsey's intellectual defense of tax and spending cuts, will want to adorn their shelves with this book. Lay readers and market skeptics will have trouble making it past the first chapter.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Lindsey was a member of the board of governors of the Federal Reserve System from 1991 to 1997, a policy advisor to President Bush, and a member of President Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers. His Growth Experiment: How the New Tax Policy Is Transforming the U.S. Economy (1990) was a defense of supply-side economics and Reagan tax policy. Lindsey now serves as a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative public-policy think tank. He explains here how those who pull the world's economic strings make their decisions and shows how those decisions affect the world's and national economies. He suggests that there are systemic limits to the power of even key decision makers, and he argues that the decision-making systems in place today are ill suited to current needs. The decision makers Lindsey profiles are Alan Greenspan, chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board; Eisuke Sakaibara, vice-minister of finance in Japan; Helmut Kohl, then chancellor of Germany; and financier and investor George Soros. David Rouse

Edition details

• Publisher: Aei Press
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0844740810
• ISBN 13: 9780844740812
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 215