What is it about?
Thinking Like an Economist: How Efficiency Replaced Equality in U.S. Public Policy is critical reading for policymakers, practitioners, and scholars interested in governance, political economy, ethics, equity, and the origins and influence of the ‘economic style of reasoning’ on federal policymaking and corresponding values and priorities. Elizabeth Popp Berman (2022) meticulously draws on over 3,000 primary and secondary resources and archival sources to elucidate how this ‘economic style of reasoning’ was legitimated and institutionalized through multiple pathways, including government offices, law and policy schools, and policy research organizations. This engaging, accessible book covers contemporary concerns, including student loan debates, and concludes with proposing what values, thoughts, and actions may facilitate ambitious reform efforts, in such areas as health and the environment.
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Why is it important?
Berman’s (2022) book is essential reading for anyone with an interest in justice, fairness, and rights within the context of policy design and implementation and how efficiency replaced equality. Individual chapters prove helpful to students and advanced scholars alike in political science, public policy, law, public and nonprofit affairs, sociology, social work, and public health. This book is invaluable to better understanding the role of economists in shaping policy discourse and the institutionalization, political influence, and limitations of the economic style of reasoning as a conduit to governance.
Perspectives
Related literature on political choices and policy effects include Gil Eyal’s (2019) book, The Crisis of Expertise, underscoring the need for more effective regulatory institutions. Daniel Carpenter’s (2002; 2010) research on regulation and government organizations; Pam Herd, Don Moynihan, (2019) and Carolyn Heinrich’s (2016; 2018) research agenda setting work on administrative burdens as policymaking by other means; and David Michaels’ (2008; 2020) work on regulatory capture and manufacturing doubt constitute further kindred research on governance and the administrative state. Dorothy Brown’s (2021) examination of the racial biases of the taxation system and tax code, plus Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor’s (2019) study of structural discrimination in 1970s housing policy and banking and real estate practices, also align as valuable scholarly contributions on policy, expertise, and inequality within democratic societies.
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Research Scholar Cynthia A Golembeski
The New School
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Book Review: Thinking Like an Economist: How Efficiency Replaced Equality in U.S. Public Policy, Journal of Public and Nonprofit Affairs, November 2022, Journal of Public and Nonprofit Affairs,
DOI: 10.20899/jpna.8.3.455-460.
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