Listed below are some of the book summaries that we have in our library.

Business Books A-F G-M N-S T-Z
Economic and Policy Books* A-F G-M N-S T-Z

Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea
Free Press August 1995
ISBN 0028740211
493 pages

This book is a major anthology of writings on politics, economics, culture, and religion by the founder of the intellectual movement known as neoconservatism. The author is the John M. Olin Distinguished Fellow at AEI. The book opens with a lengthy autobiographical memoir, excerpts from which follow.

Is there such a thing as a "neo" gene? I ask that question because, looking back over a lifetime of my opinions, I am struck by the fact that they all qualify as "neo." I have been a neo-Marxist, a neo-Trotskyist, a neosocialist, a neoliberal, and finally a neoconservative. It seems that no ideology or philosophy has ever been able to encompass all of reality to my satisfaction. There was always a degree of detachment qualifying my commitment.

On Cultivating Liberty: Reflections on Moral Ecology
By Michael Novak
(Edited by Brian C. Anderson)
Rowman & Littlefield (April 1999)
ISBN 0847694054
359 pages

On Cultivating Liberty, a collection of essays by theologian Michael Novak, is divided into three sections. The first, "Liberty: The Virtue and the Institutions," collects several of Novak's most important essays on the free society, written over the past decade and a half. The section moves from the foundations of liberty (chapters one and two) to specific historical and institutional questions of the free society (chapters three through five) and concludes with a meditation on the family, which is for Novak a school of practical wisdom and a fierce enemy to all projects to engineer the human soul. The second section, "Liberty: The Tradition and Some of Its Heroes," is a look at some of the most profound theorists of freedom: Thomas Aquinas, Jacques Maritain, Reinhold Niebuhr, Irving Kristol, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and John Paul II. The third section is an afterword containing the intellectual autobiography "Errand into the Wilderness," which traces Novak's disaffection with the Left, his immersion in political economy, and his understanding of his work. In addition, the volume contains a "Readers' Guide" to Novak's major writings.
Michael Novak holds the George Frederick Jewett Chair in Religion, Philosophy, and Public Policy at the American Enterprise Institute. The author of more than two dozen books and hundreds of published essays, he received the Institute's 1999 Francis Boyer Award on February 25. Brian C. Anderson is senior editor of City Journal and author of Raymond Aron: The Recovery of the Political. Mr. Anderson edited this volume and wrote the introduction, from which this summary is drawn.

On the Other Hand: Essays on Economics, Economists, and Politics
By Herbert Stein
AEI Press February 1995
ISBN: 0844738778
267 pages

This book is a collection of essays on economic growth, poverty, employment, taxes, and deficits; on the role of presidents and their advisers in the formation of economic policy; and on the economists whose ideas have influenced economic practice. The author is a senior fellow at AEI. Excerpts from the book follow.
In my fifty-eight years in Washington, I have seen eleven presidents in action. The period was almost equally divided between Democratic and Republican administrations. Liberals, conservatives, and neo-cons, Keynesians, monetarists, and supply-siders have come and gone; I have not seen that any of them had a monopoly on wisdom or on folly. An old saying goes that whoever is not a Socialist when young has no heart and whoever is still a Socialist when old has no head. I say that whoever is not a liberal when young has no heart, whoever is not a conservative when middle-aged has no head, and whoever is still either a liberal or a conservative at age seventy-eight has no sense of humor. Obviously, orthodox certainty on matters about which there can be so little certitude must eventually be seen as only amusing.

On Two Wings: Humble Faith and Common Sense at the American Founding
By Michael Novak
Encounter Books 1st edition (December 2001)
ISBN 1893554341
235 pages

The United States took flight on two wings-common sense and humble faith. Both were essential to those who bore the long trial of the nation's birth against all odds with resolute endurance and unwavering trust. This book defines reason as the founders saw it and describes the integral part religious faith played in America's beginnings.

Michael Novak is the George Frederick Jewett Scholar in Religion, Philosophy, and Public Policy at AEI. His previous books include God's Country: Taking the Declaration Seriously (2000) and On Cultivating Liberty: Reflections on Moral Ecology (1999).

Contrary to conventional histories, the American Republic took flight on two wings: not only on the Enlightenment, but also on faith in the God of the ancient Hebrews, the God of liberty. In the first chapter of this book, "Jewish Metaphysics at the Founding," the author shows that the God of the founders was not the God of Deism. The public acts of the Continental Congress employ the Hebrew names of God and their implied metaphysics of open history, contingency, individuality, and liberty. Of the fifty-six signers of the Declaration of Independence and thirty-eight signers of the Constitution, all but one or two were deeply influenced by the Hebrew Bible.

Optional Federal Chartering and Regulation of Insurance Companies
Edited by Peter J. Wallison
American Enterprise Institute (September 2000)
ISBN 0844741469
200 pages

Since its inception, the insurance business in the United States has been regulated at the state level, and insurers have generally fought against and prevented significant federal-level regulation. But the balkanized state regulatory system that has served well in the past is an impediment to the industry today, and it is not clear that the political will exists at the state level to bring about a modernized regulatory structure. Federal regulation is the only practical alternative, and both life insurers and property and casualty insurers-through their industry associations-are beginning to give serious consideration to that option.

This book is a collection of papers and views delivered at a 1999 AEI conference whose purpose was to raise the major issues and policy questions associated with optional federal chartering and regulation and to outline the likely positions of the principal players in any future debate on specific legislation.

Insurance companies, like other financial services firms, must confront a radically evolving marketplace. Once the source of a unique and frequently local service, many insurers now compete nationally and globally with banks, securities firms, and even unregulated financial institutions. The enactment of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in November 1999, which allowed banks, securities firms, and insurance companies to affiliate, simply ratified what was already a reality. This challenge has forced the industry to look more critically than in the past at the way it is regulated, and some insurers have concluded that change is vitally necessary.

Over the Line: North Korea's Negotiating Strategy
By Chuck Downs
AEI Press 1st edition (November 1998)
ISBN 0844740292
337 pages

North Korea's launch of a ballistic missile over Japan in August 1998 confirmed that its continuing famine and economic crisis will not prevent it from threatening peace in North Asia. How should the United States and its allies approach North Korea? This book provides guidance by examining the record of North Korea's international negotiations over the five decades of its existence and by discerning the strong patterns that have characterized its negotiating posture.

Chuck Downs has substantial experience in international negotiations and in East Asian security issues and is a former associate director of Asian studies at AEI.

The words crazy, irrational, bizarre, and unpredictable are too often used to describe the negotiating behavior of North Korea. Despite those prevalent characterizations, North Korea's negotiating strategy has been extraordinarily consistent. Few nations have so regularly practiced negotiation as their principal foreign policy instrument, so repeatedly used a familiar set of negotiating tactics, and so doggedly pursued a set of fundamental negotiating objectives.

Panama's Canal: What Happens When the United States Gives a Small Country What It Wants
By Mark Falcoff
AEI Press April 1998
ISBN 0844740306
176 pages

At noon on the last day of 1999, the Panama Canal and its adjacent lands will revert from U.S. control to that of the government of Panama, as prescribed by the Carter-Torrijos treaties concluded in 1978. With this act, nearly ninety years of American presence in the Central American isthmus will come to an end, ensuring Panama's sovereignty for the first time. As the date for transfer nears, however, Panamanians have had second thoughts about the U.S. departure since many benefits-both tangible and intangible-will be forfeited. Meanwhile, many issues pushed under the rug during the treaty negotiations are poised to foist themselves on us. This book explores those issues and outlines some political and economic changes that Panama must make to succeed as the administrator of one of the world's most important waterways.
Mark Falcoff is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and author of many studies on U.S.-Latin American relations, including Searching for Panama (with Richard Millett) and Small Countries, Large Issues.

When the Carter-Torrijos treaties were signed in 1978, Panama had every expectation that by the time the year 2000 rolled around it would be in an advantageous position to assume control of the canal and its adjacent ten-mile zone. The United States was still recovering from its disastrous experience in Vietnam and was perceived in many quarters to be in full retreat as a great power, while the Nonaligned Movement and what used to be called the Third World seemed to be filling the vacuum. Much discourse of the Carter administration ratified this worldview, at least implicitly.

PC, M.D.: How Political Correctness Is Corrupting Medicine
By Sally Satel
Basic Books1st edition (January 8, 2002)
ISBN 046507183X
304 pages

In this book, Sally Satel identifies and critiques the burgeoning phenomenon of "politically correct" medicine, which seeks to remedy social oppression by ensuring the equitable distribution of public health. She argues that incorporating social justice into the mission of medicine diverts attention and resources from the effort to prevent and combat disease for everyone, regardless of race or sex.
Satel, a psychiatrist at the Oasis Clinic and a lecturer at the Yale University School of Medicine, is a W. H. Brady Fellow at AEI. She is the author of Drug Treatment: The Case for Coercion (AEI Press, 1999). This summary is adapted from her introduction to PC, M.D.

What makes us sick? Poison chemicals, viruses, smoking. These and hundreds of other things. But what about modern medicine itself?

Pharmaceutical Price Regulation: National Policies versus Global Interests
By Patricia M. Danzon
AEI Press 1st edition (October 1998)
ISBN 0844739839
107 pages

This study examines the effects of different forms of pharmaceutical price regulation on incentives for innovation and on production efficiency, first in the context of a single closed economy and then in the more realistic context of a global economy with connected markets. Patricia M. Danzon is the Celia Moh Professor of Health Care Systems and Insurance at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business and is an adjunct scholar of AEI.
As governments devise new strategies to control their health care spending, the regulation of drug prices and expenditures is becoming increasingly stringent in many countries. These foreign systems have attracted attention as possible models for the regulation of drug prices in the United States. Several studies have argued that prices here are significantly higher than prices in other countries that employ regulatory controls. President Clinton's Health Security Act called for the creation of an Advisory Council on Breakthrough Drugs that would evaluate the reasonableness of new drug prices, based on costs and the lowest price charged in more than twenty other countries, including Canada. Although the threat of price regulation in the United States has receded, it will probably return if attention reverts to the issue of adding outpatient drug coverage to Medicare or expanding health insurance more generally. Meanwhile, market-driven controls through managed drug benefit programs are evolving in structure and diffusing widely in private insurance plans.

Pooling Health Insurance Risks
By Mark Pauly and Bradley Herring
AEI PressOctober 1999
ISBN 0844741205
115 pages

Health insurance can help directly with the financial consequences of health risk and, by increasing access to care, can make possible some alleviation of the threats to health. For both of those reasons, a majority of Americans who are not eligible for public insurance voluntarily arrange for private insurance coverage for themselves and their dependents. This book addresses the following questions: How well do private insurance markets function to smooth or pool medical expenses? Do some parts or types of insurance markets work better than others? Should steps be taken to improve market functioning, and might some actions, while helping to hold down medical-care spending or achieve greater equity, simultaneously threaten the appropriate pooling of risk?

Mark Pauly is the Bendheim Professor of Health Care Systems at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, where Bradley Herring is a Ph.D. candidate. This summary is drawn from the book's introductory and concluding chapters.

Risk pooling and risk segmentation are undoubtedly the most complex, confusing, and contentious issues of "market failure" in the analysis of private health insurance markets. In formulating and implementing public policy toward risk pooling and risk segmentation, it is extremely difficult to avoid unintended consequences and to do more good than harm.

Preparing to Be President: The Memos of Richard E. Neustadt
Edited by Charles O. Jones
American Enterprise Institute October 25, 2000
ISBN 0844741396
200 pages

Richard E. Neustadt is the nation's preeminent scholar of the American presidency. His book Presidential Power has been the classic political science study of the presidency since its publication in 1960 and through its five editions and numerous printings. In addition to his public work, Neustadt was also a private adviser to a number of presidencies on the subject of how to make a smooth transition into office. Preparing to Be President: The Memos of Richard E. Neustadt is a collection of memos Neustadt wrote to presidential candidates, presidents-elect, presidents, and their top aides, beginning with a memo addressed to Sen. John F. Kennedy on September 15, 1960. The eighteen memos in this collection contain Neustadt's advice to Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Michael Dukakis, and Bill Clinton.

In addition to the memos, Neustadt has written a new essay, "Advising the Advisers," which explains how he came to write the memos and looks at modern day transitions and the hazards a transition adviser might encounter. It is particularly relevant for the contemporary presidency given the transition into office that a new president will face in January 2001.

Charles O. Jones, professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, edited the volume. He includes an essay interpreting the memos and their relevance for the present day and a bibliographical essay discussing Neustadt's memos in relation to transition memos written by others.

Prices, Markets, and the Pharmaceutical Revolution
By John E. Calfee
AEI Press February 2000
ISBN 0844771473

Although pharmaceutical costs have aroused controversy for decades, debate has intensified over the past year. Proposals to add a drug benefit to Medicare are being floated, which raises the specter of price controls. This book explains why efforts to control drug prices through political means are deeply misconceived and could thwart today's dramatic improvements in health.
John E. Calfee is a resident scholar at AEI and the author of Fear of Persuasion: A New Perspective on Advertising and Regulation.

This book begins with a single fact-spending on prescription drugs is rapidly increasing-and then proceeds through a series of questions, as each answer raises the next question. Ultimately, the reader is left with the view that profit-seeking pharmaceutical research and development is bringing unprecedented benefits to millions of consumers and will continue to do so-unless Congress or the state legislatures interfere by imposing price controls or a misconceived plan for Medicare coverage of prescription drugs.

Prosperous Paupers and Other Population Problems
By Nicholas Eberstadt
Transaction Pub (May 30, 2000)
ISBN 1560004231
256 pages

Much of our current public and intellectual discourse takes as self-evident the proposition that the entire modern world-from the affluent United States to the poorest of the low-income regions-is beset today by a broad and alarming array of "population problems." Around the globe, leading scientists, academics, and political figures now attribute all manner of miseries-poverty, hunger, social tension, even political conflict-to contemporary demographic trends. According to these authorities, the size, composition, and rate of growth of population routinely pose direct and major threats to human well-being. That same argument further posits that a society's "population problems" should be addressed by interventions aimed specifically at altering its demographic rhythms.

The essays collected in this volume represent a dissent from this modern-day canon. As the book demonstrates, the very conception of "population problems" is inherently ambiguous and arbitrary, lending itself to faulty analysis and inappropriate diagnoses. Much of the prevailing thinking about population problems is also plainly careless: rooted in faulty analysis, sometimes even based on the most evident of misconceptions. Such careless thinking about population problems is a result of inattention to, or indifference toward, the fundamental unit in all populations: the individual human being.

Protecting Competition from the Postal Monopoly
By J. Gregory Sidak and Daniel F. Spulber
AEI Press March 1996
ISBN 0844739502
195 pages

This book examines the statutory and economic principles concerning the U.S. Postal Service and advocates the elimination of the Postal Service's ability to abuse its statutory monopoly to forestall competition in many different markets. Mr. Sidak is the F. K. Weyerhaeuser Fellow in Law and Economics at AEI and a senior lecturer at the Yale School of Management. Mr. Spulber is the Thomas G. Ayers Professor of Energy Resource Management and professor of management strategy at the J. L. Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. A summary of the book follows.

The general rule in the American economy is that attempted monopolization is a crime. For delivering letters, however, it is attempted competition that is the crime. The Private Express Statutes protect the U.S. Postal Service from competition in the delivery of letter mail. In contrast, few if any corresponding rules protect competition in other areas from the federal government's postal monopoly. The Postal Service can use its protected letter mail monopoly to subsidize its entry and expansion in existing competitive markets, such as parcel post and express mail, and in emerging markets, such as electronic transmission of business reply mail. Furthermore, the Postal Service shields itself from competitive entry in various existing and future classes of mail with a monopoly over mailbox access.

Public Opinion in the United States and Japan: How We See Each Other and Ourselves
By Everett Carll Ladd and Karlyn H. Bowman
AEI Press June 1996
ISBN 0844770574
163 pages

This book is a study of public opinion in the world's leading economic powers and major trading partners. Mr. Ladd is director of the Roper Center at the University of Connecticut and an adjunct scholar at AEI. Ms. Bowman is a resident fellow at AEI. A summary of the book follows.

President Clinton's visit to Japan in the spring of 1996 comes thirty-six years after Dwight D. Eisenhower, the first U.S. president scheduled to go to Japan, canceled his trip. Ike did so amid protests in Japan related to the continuation of the U.S.-Japan Mutual Security Treaty. The Japanese government fell soon after. President Clinton canceled his visit in November 1995, ostensibly because of a budgetary dispute with the Republican-led Congress. But the rape of a Japanese schoolgirl by American servicemen and protests about the U.S. military presence in Japan no doubt influenced his decision not to go.

Public Policy toward Cable Television: The Economics of Rate Controls
By Thomas W. Hazlett and Matthew L. Spitzer
MIT Press (December 12, 1997)
ISBN 0262082535
253 pages

This book analyzes the effectiveness of the federal government's vacillating regulatory policy toward the cable television industry.

Thomas W. Hazlett is professor of economics at the University of California, Davis. In October, he will become a resident scholar at AEI. Matthew L. Spitzer is professor of law at the University of Southern California.

Few consumer issues have been so gnawing in the 1980s and 1990s as the question of cable television rates. Congress deregulated cable rates in 1984, then reregulated them in 1992, and then de-reregulated them in 1996. Now, in 1998, yet another round of controls has been discussed. Why the confusion? Can anyone explain what is happening with cable rates?

Pyongyang, Mon Amour: A Sojourn in a Surreal State
By Radek Sikorski
AEI Online (Washington) Jan 1, 2003

The author recalls a recent official visit to Pyongyang and outlines the lessons it holds for America's negotiations with North Korea today.

I am a friend of North Korea. Or rather, that's what it probably says in my file in the North Korean ministry of foreign affairs. It happened like this. In 1992, as deputy minister for defense in Poland's first democratically elected government, I received an invitation to North Korea's embassy in Warsaw to celebrate the birthday of the Great Leader. Thinking that it would be my last chance to attend a Stalinist event, I went. The North Koreans were delighted to land such a "big fish." And when I told the ambassador, truthfully, that they must not allow ideological slackness or they would end up like Poland, he positively glowed. A laudatory telegram must have gone to Pyongyang, for each time I subsequently met a North Korean diplomat, he told me I was a good egg, who respected them at a time when even so-called communists turned their backs.

Rate Regulation of Workers' Compensation Insurance
By Patricia M. Danzon and Scott E. Harrington
AEI Press; 1st edition (January 1998)
ISBN 0844739324
170 pages

In many states, the regulation of workers' compensation insurance demonstrates how good intentions can lead to bad results. The good intention in this case is to save businesses --locally owned small businesses in particular--from "excessive" insurance premiums by regulating premium rates. The results, as this book clearly shows, are higher costs for the state systems as a whole and probably more work-related injuries as well.

Patricia M. Danzon is Celia Moh Professor of Health Care Systems and Insurance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Scott E. Harrington is professor of insurance and finance and Francis M. Hipp Distinguished Faculty Fellow in the College of Business Administration at the University of South Carolina.

State workers' compensation systems and workers' compensation insurance markets experienced considerable turmoil in the 1980s and early 1990s, with rapid growth in workers' compensation costs and deteriorating financial results for insurers. Employers were often confronted with significant increases in the cost of insurance. At the same time, insurers argued that state regulators failed to allow rate increases commensurate with rapidly rising costs and that consequently rates had become inadequate to maintain the profitability of providing insurance coverage. Consistent with rate inadequacy, the size of the residual market (which provides coverage to employers that experience difficulty in obtaining coverage from an insurer willing to sell it voluntarily) increased sharply in many states. The growth in residual markets and associated operating deficits in the residual market led to cross-subsidies from the voluntary insurance market to the residual market, which in turn encouraged some employers to insure themselves rather than pay more for coverage in the voluntary market.

Real Federalism: Why It Matters, How It Could Happen
By Michael S. Greve
AEI Press March 1999
ISBN 0844740993
180 pages

Federalism, the principle that some policy matters fall under the authority of the states and others under the authority of the national government, has long tended to be much admired but little observed. Although it often seems futile to protest the usurpation of state responsibilities by Washington, this book explains why a restoration of federalism is both desirable and achievable.
Michael S. Greve is cofounder and executive director of the Center for Individual Rights and an adjunct fellow of AEI.

In recent years, we have witnessed a renewed interest in federalism. Congress has transferred authority over some policy areas to the states, welfare reform being the most prominent example. Supreme Court decisions since 1995 have reestablished federalist doctrines. Legal scholars and political scientists have argued for a more open, federalist politics. Those developments have occurred against the backdrop of growing discontent with the federal government's rigidities, inefficiencies, and empty promises.

Referendums around the World: The Growing Use of Direct Democracy
Edited by David Butler and Austin Ranney
AEI Press September 1994
ISBN 0844738530
304 pages

This book summarizes the world's experience with various forms of the referendum device. It includes chapters on Western and Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, Australia and New Zealand, and the American states. Mr. Butler is a fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford University, and an adjunct scholar of AEI. Mr. Ranney is professor of political science emeritus, University of California at Berkeley, and also an adjunct scholar of AEI. A summary of the book follows.

In a referendum, a mass electorate votes on some public issue. A referendum can be initiated in many ways and take many forms, but most democracies have at some time held referendums. In a few countries, these have been institutionalized into a regular part of government. In most, they have been ad hoc affairs designed to solve a specific problem. Half of the 800 or so referendums that have taken place at the national level in the history of the world have been in Switzerland, but the number of other countries in which they have played a continuous role in politics is very small. On the whole, they have been crisis instruments, invoked to solve a particular problem or to justify a particular solution.

Regulating Broadcast Programming
By Thomas G. Krattenmaker and Lucas A. Powe, Jr.
AEI Press November 1994
ISBN 0844740578

This book provides a comprehensive description and critique of past and present federal government efforts to regulate radio and television broadcast program content. Mr. Krattenmaker is the dean and professor of law at the Marshall-Wythe School of Law, College of William and Mary. Mr. Powe is Anne Green Regents Chair, professor of law, and professor of government at the University of Texas. A summary of the book follows.

Direct government control over program content has always been the centerpiece of federal regulation of the broadcast industry. Congress and its regulatory agent, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), have consistently tried to impose their notions of proper programming on radio and television. Congress established the Federal Radio Commission (FRC), the predecessor of the FCC, in 1927, and the FRC almost immediately set about removing "propaganda" stations from the air.

Regulating Financial Markets: A Critique and Some Proposals
By George J. Benson
AEI Press August 1999
ISBN 0844741248
136 pages

Financial services regulation tends to be costly and unsympathetic to consumers. This book examines why that is the case and proposes a regulatory regime that would be more efficient and more responsive to consumer interests.

George J. Benston is the John H. Harland Professor of Finance, Accounting, and Economics at Emory University's Goizueta Business School and a member of AEI's Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee.

Financial services, firms that provide those services, and financial markets are regulated worldwide to a greater extent than are most other products and services, with the exception of those that affect people's health and safety. Why is that? Indeed, why did governments begin to regulate financial firms and services long before they became concerned with their citizens' health and safety, or even with their economic well-being? What is the current justification for these regulations? Should financial services be regulated at all? If they should be regulated, which regulations would serve public purposes best and which would be harmful? These questions are considered and answered in this volume.

Rethinking WTC: An Evaluation of the Women, Infants, and Children Program
By Douglas J. Besharov and Peter Germanis
American Enterprise Institute December 1, 2000
ISBN 0844741485
180 pages

To prevent the physical or medical problems among low-income women and their children caused by nutritional deficiencies, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) provides healthy foods, together with nutrition education, counseling, and referral services, to needy pregnant and postpartum women and to their children under age five. In this book, Douglas J. Besharov and Peter Germanis review research evaluating WIC's effectiveness and conclude that the program's overall benefits are modest at best. However, instead of recommending that WIC be abandoned or cut, Besharov and Germanis call for a sustained effort to make it more effective. The volume contains a series of recommended policy and programmatic changes and concludes with comments from five leading experts on the program.

Besharov is the Joseph J. and Violet Jacobs Scholar in Social Welfare Studies at AEI. His recent books include America's Disconnected Youth: Toward a Preventive Strategy (1999) and Enhancing Early Childhood Programs: Burdens and Opportunities (1996). Germanis is a research associate at AEI and the assistant director of the University of Maryland's Welfare Reform Academy. This summary is adapted from the book's introduction.

"WIC works, perhaps better than any other government program in existence," declared Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman during his tenure. Former Health and Human Services secretary Louis Sullivan has made a similar claim: "The WIC Program results in significant Medicaid savings that far outweigh the program's costs by a ratio of 3 to 1. . . . That is clearly an overwhelming return on a small national investment." Such statements testify to the extraordinary bipartisan support enjoyed by WIC, the Special Supple-mental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children. Unfortunately, the research evidence amassed by Besharov and Germanis does not support such claims.

Retroactive Legislation
By Daniel E. Troy
AEI Press March 1998
ISBN 0844740233
127 pages

This book describes the increasing tolerance of American legislators for adopting retroactive laws and explains why this is a pernicious trend. After reviewing both the traditional arguments and the constitutional constraints against retroactive legislation, the author concludes with suggestions for curbing such laws.

Daniel E. Troy is an associate scholar at AEI and a partner in the law firm of Wiley, Rein & Fielding.

In the early 1980s, Congress created a tax deduction to encourage people to sell a company's stock to its employee stock option plan (ESOP). To get the benefit of that deduction, Jerry Carlton, the executor of an estate, sold stock to an ESOP at a loss. Engaging in what Justice Antonin Scalia later called "bait and switch" taxation, Congress repealed the tax deduction in 1986 and applied the repeal retroactively, costing the estate more than $600,000. Scalia's comment notwithstanding, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the government's retroactive assessment of the tax.

Reviving Regulatory Reform: A Global Perspective
By Robert W. Hahn
The AEI Press March 15, 2000
ISBN 0844741221
104 pages

Regulatory policy is currently undergoing a facelift, with policymakers calling for a more stringent review of how proposed regulations would affect people and businesses. Reformers want to see laws enacted that are not mired in hidden costs, excessive paperwork, and counterproductive provisions. This book assesses the current state of regulation in the United States and abroad and looks at the prospects for this critical aspect of public policy.

Robert W. Hahn is the director of the AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, a resident scholar at AEI, and a research associate at Harvard University.

Regulatory policymaking is in the midst of a revolution. Scholars and lawmakers no longer happy with the status quo are questioning existing regulation and floating daring new proposals on how to fix the system. Policymakers are engaged in a thorough reexamination of the nation's regulations in an effort to rein in a complex system that is overburdened with paperwork and hidden costs.

Ronald Reagan: How an Ordinary Man Became an Extraordinary Leader
By Dinesh D'Souza
Touchstone Books February 1999
ISBN 0684848236
304 pages

This book tells the story of how Ronald Reagan led the West to victory in the cold war and inspired a resurgence of capitalism and democracy worldwide. The author, Dinesh D'Souza, is Olin Research Fellow at AEI. His previous books are The End of Racism (1995) and Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus (1991).

Americans are enjoying an era of peace and prosperity not seen since the 1950s. Perhaps this golden age will prove to be short-lived, but while it lasts, we would do well to ask, How did it come about?

Sampling and the Census: A Case Against the Proposed Adjustments for Undercount
By Kenneth Darga
AEI Press February 1999
ISBN 0844741027
140 pages

The decennial census mandated by the Constitution is a matter of great importance. The census provides the basis for establishing political boundaries, including boundaries for state and local political districts as well as congressional districts. It also serves as a basis for fund allocation: not only federal funds but also state, local, and private funds are often distributed on the basis of census data. The census enables scholars, government officials, business people, planners, and citizens to understand trends and developments in individual communities as well as in the nation as a whole.

This volume argues against the controversial proposal to use sampling techniques in the next federal census. Sampling would be used to estimate the size of segments of the population that many researchers believe to be undercounted by traditional census methods.

Serving Two Masters, Yet out of Control: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
Edited by Peter J. Wallison
AEI Press July 2001
ISBN0844741663
187 pages

Because two disparate-almost diametrically opposite-clients demand loyalty from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, both of those government-sponsored entities must fulfill two ultimately irreconcilable roles. As publicly owned corporations, they must maximize profitability for shareholders. Yet, as quasi-government agencies, they should use their huge, implicit government subsidies in support of their public missions.

Those subsidies, conflicting objectives, the risks to taxpayers, and the agencies' resistance to any regulation create the internal tensions at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Would privatization solve the dilemma of the dual public and private form? If not, what other options exist? In this volume, public figures, economists, and government officials probe the favored positions that have allowed the two agencies to grow to unprecedented size, realize extraordinary profitability, and achieve unparalleled influence over the political process.

Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline
By Robert H. Bork
HarperCollins (paper); ; Reprint edition (June 1997)
ISBN 0060987197
400 pages

This book surveys American culture and finds a depraved spectacle. After tracing the historical and philosophical roots of our decline in the first part of the book, the author addresses a number of current moral and cultural controversies in the second. In the final section, he asks whether it might be possible to reverse the decline he has depicted, and if so, how.

Robert H. Bork is John M. Olin Scholar in Legal Studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

This is a book about American decline. Since American culture is a variant of the cultures of all Western industrialized democracies, it may even, inadvertently, be a book about Western decline. In the United States, at least, that decline and the mounting resistance to it have produced what we now call a culture war. It is impossible to say what the outcome will be, but for the moment our trajectory continues downward. This is not to deny that much in our culture remains healthy, that many families are intact and continue to raise children with strong moral values. American culture is complex and resilient. But it is also not to be denied that there are aspects of almost every branch of our culture that are worse than ever before and that the rot is spreading.

Study of Revenge: Saddam Hussein's Unfinished War against America
By Laurie Mylroie
HarperCollins 2nd Revision edition (November 15, 2001)
ISBN 006009771X
352 pages

In the years since the 1991 Persian Gulf War, America's attention has turned away from Iraq as other issues came to crowd the Middle East agenda. But the Gulf War never really ended-not for the United States and not for Iraq's Saddam Hussein. On the U.S. side, the economic sanctions maintained on Iraq are an outgrowth of the war, and the United States continues to bomb Iraq on a frequent basis. On the Iraqi side, Saddam's retention of dangerous conventional weapons capabilities constitutes a flagrant violation of the Gulf War cease-fire. Over the past decade, as America has turned a blind eye, Saddam has been steadily coming back, using force and violence to undermine the coalition once arrayed against him, eroding the system of post-war constraints imposed on Iraq, and otherwise seeking his revenge.

This book is Laurie Mylroie's follow-up to her New York Times number-one bestseller Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf (coauthored with Judith Miller). Mylroie has taught at Harvard University and the U.S. Naval War College. She is the publisher of Iraq News, an online newsletter that analyzes developments in the continuing U.S. confrontation with Baghdad. This summary is adapted from Mylroie's introduction and conclusion to Study of Revenge.

In May 1994, the first group of conspirators convicted for the February 1993 World Trade Center bombing were sentenced. The defendants' goal-according to Judge Kevin Duffy-was to topple the north tower onto the south tower amid a cloud of cyanide gas that would engulf those trapped in the north tower. "That's clearly what you intended," the judge said. "If that had happened, we would have been dealing with tens of thousands of deaths."

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