This award-winning book "skillfully blends economic and political analysis" to assess the challenges of urban governments (Emmett H. Buell, Jr., American Political Science Review).Winner of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award for the best book published in the United States on government, politics, or international affairsMany simply presume that a city's politics are like a nation's politics, just on a smaller scale. But the nature of the...

Commodity Derivatives: A Guide for Future Practitioners describes the origins and uses of these important markets. Commodities are often used as inputs in the production of other products, and commodity prices are notoriously volatile. Derivatives include forwards, futures, options, and swaps; all are types of contracts that allow buyers and sellers to establish the price at one time and exchange the commodity at another.This straightforward book provides the necessary the...

Many believe that the urban underclass in America is a large, rapidly increasing proportion of the population; that crime, teenage pregnancy, and high school dropout rates are escalating; and that welfare rolls are exploding. Yet none of these perceptions is accurate. Here, noted authorities, including William J. Wilson, attempt to separate the truth about poverty, social dislocation, and changes in American family life from the myths that have become part of contemporary folklore.

America's inner cities, particularly those in older industrial metropolitan areas, have declined sharply in both population and employment over the past two decades. How much of this change is due to technological advances in transportation, communication, and manufacturing? How much of it is due to the changing racial composition of the central cities? Can any set of public policies retard or reverse the decline of the industrial cities?This book presents an interdisciplinary colle...

While educators, parents and policymakers are still debating the pros and cons of school choice, it is now possible to learn from choice experiments in public, private, and charter schools across the country. This book examines the evidence from these early school choice programs and looks at the larger implications of choice and competition in education.Paul Peterson makes a strong case for school choice in central cities, and coeditor Bryan Hassel offers the case for charter schoo...

""The best way of handling the question of how much to give the poor, politicians have discovered, is to avoid doing anything about it at all,"" note Paul Peterson and Mark Rom. The issue of the minimum people need in order to live decently is so difficult that Congress has left this crucial question to the states-even though the federal government foots three-fourths of the bill for about 15 million Americans who receive cash and food stamp benefits.The states differ widely in thei...

Twenty years ago cooperative federalism, in the form of federal grant-in-aid programs administered by state and local governments, was applauded almost without reservation as the best means of helping the handicapped, the educationally disadvantaged, the poor, and other groups with special needs. More recently these same programs have been criticized for excessive regulations and red tape, bureaucratic ineptitude, and high cost. The criticisms have been used to justify efforts to curb fede...

Effective government requires that institutions be strong enough to control the efforts of organized, entrenched special interests in favor of the broader interests shared but poorly articulated by most members of society. Recent changes in our institutions and in the problems they face raise doubts about the capacity of contemporary American government to handle these parochial forces. Congress has seemingly become more fragmented, the presidency more politicized, and the bureaucracy more...

Topics include:Part One: Voters and ElectionsThe New Two-Party SystemThe Economic Basis of Reagan's AppealIncumbency and Realignment in Congressional ElectionsCampaigning, Governing, and the Contemporary PresidencyThe Republican Advantage in Campaign FinanceThe Rise of National PartiesPart Two: Institutions and PolicyNew Patterns of Decisionmaking in CongressThe Politicized PresidencyFederalism and the Bias for Ce...

A Brookings Institution Press and Russell Sage Foundation publicationEducation is one of the largest sectors of the U.S. economy--yet scholars, educators, policymakers, and parents do not agree about what the money spent on education really buys. In particular, they do not agree on how much education improves children's ability to learn or whether the things children learn in school truly improve their chances for success as adults. If schooling increases how much students know and ...

The relative deficiencies of U.S. public schools are a serious concern to parents and policymakers. But they should be of concern to all Americans, as a globalizing world introduces new competition for talent, markets, capital, and opportunity. In Endangering Prosperity, a trio of experts on international education policy compares the performance of American schools against that of other nations. The net result is a mixed but largely disappointing picture that clearly shows where ...

A comprehensive exploration of 21st Century school politics, Teachers versus the Public offers the first comparison of the education policy views of both teachers and the public as a whole, and reveals a deep, broad divide between the opinions held by citizens and those who teach in the public schools. Among the findings: Divisions between teachers and the public are wider and deeper than differences between other groups often thought to contest school policy, such as Repu...