America's Exceptional Economic Problem

This book looks at the longer term challenges that the US economy faces. The title America's Exceptional Economic Problem is intended to denote the gravity and awkwardness of the challenges that the US economy faces. These are: a historically large public sector, extensive unfunded public sector liabilities and an aging population. Many people still perceive the US economy as being significantly different from other advanced economies. Instead it is much more similar to an average OECD economy than many people think and shares many of their structural challenges, while lacking many of the accepted policy responses.

The book gives careful attention to the history and the institutions that shape modern America, not least the legacy of the Great Depression as well as the consequences of slavery and segregation

Warwick lightfoot is Director of Research and Head of Economics and Social Policy at Policy Exchange. He is an economist with specialist interests in monetary policy, public expenditure, taxation and labour markets. Formerly the economics editor of The European, he was for many years a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal and has written for the Financial Times, The Times, the Sunday Times, the Daily Telegraph, the Sunday Telegraph, the Guardian and The Spectator.