On the Search for Well-Being
This book takes on one of the great questions of the day: Why are some countries enormously rich and others so heartbreakingly poor?
Henry J. Bruton organizes the discussion around three basic ideas. The first is that well-being reflects not only the availability and distribution of goods and services, but also employment, values, institutions, and quality of preferences. The second is that ignorance is ubiquitous; hence growth of well-being depends primarily on commitments to searching and learning. The extent of such commitments is embedded in deep-seated characteristics of the society, its history, and the degree to which it can look ahead. The third is that economic policy-making is largely a matter of muddling through; furthermore, the idea that an economy can be assumed to be in a general equilibrium and can therefore be left to itself must be rejected. The author explores these ideas and their implications for the processes of growth and for policies to facilitate that growth.
The book breaks new ground in its emphasis on ignorance and learning and its generalized definition of well-being. Drawing from contemporary work in evolutionary economics, the economics of technological change, analytical economic history, and the new political economy, this work should be of interest to historians, sociologists, and students of technology, as well as economists. While directly concerned with development, it has implications for labor, trade, economic history, and industrial organization.
Henry J. Bruton is Professor of Economics, Williams College.
1119134503
On the Search for Well-Being
This book takes on one of the great questions of the day: Why are some countries enormously rich and others so heartbreakingly poor?
Henry J. Bruton organizes the discussion around three basic ideas. The first is that well-being reflects not only the availability and distribution of goods and services, but also employment, values, institutions, and quality of preferences. The second is that ignorance is ubiquitous; hence growth of well-being depends primarily on commitments to searching and learning. The extent of such commitments is embedded in deep-seated characteristics of the society, its history, and the degree to which it can look ahead. The third is that economic policy-making is largely a matter of muddling through; furthermore, the idea that an economy can be assumed to be in a general equilibrium and can therefore be left to itself must be rejected. The author explores these ideas and their implications for the processes of growth and for policies to facilitate that growth.
The book breaks new ground in its emphasis on ignorance and learning and its generalized definition of well-being. Drawing from contemporary work in evolutionary economics, the economics of technological change, analytical economic history, and the new political economy, this work should be of interest to historians, sociologists, and students of technology, as well as economists. While directly concerned with development, it has implications for labor, trade, economic history, and industrial organization.
Henry J. Bruton is Professor of Economics, Williams College.
33.95 In Stock
On the Search for Well-Being

On the Search for Well-Being

by Henry J. Bruton
On the Search for Well-Being

On the Search for Well-Being

by Henry J. Bruton

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Overview

This book takes on one of the great questions of the day: Why are some countries enormously rich and others so heartbreakingly poor?
Henry J. Bruton organizes the discussion around three basic ideas. The first is that well-being reflects not only the availability and distribution of goods and services, but also employment, values, institutions, and quality of preferences. The second is that ignorance is ubiquitous; hence growth of well-being depends primarily on commitments to searching and learning. The extent of such commitments is embedded in deep-seated characteristics of the society, its history, and the degree to which it can look ahead. The third is that economic policy-making is largely a matter of muddling through; furthermore, the idea that an economy can be assumed to be in a general equilibrium and can therefore be left to itself must be rejected. The author explores these ideas and their implications for the processes of growth and for policies to facilitate that growth.
The book breaks new ground in its emphasis on ignorance and learning and its generalized definition of well-being. Drawing from contemporary work in evolutionary economics, the economics of technological change, analytical economic history, and the new political economy, this work should be of interest to historians, sociologists, and students of technology, as well as economists. While directly concerned with development, it has implications for labor, trade, economic history, and industrial organization.
Henry J. Bruton is Professor of Economics, Williams College.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780472024193
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Publication date: 05/18/2010
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 240
File size: 2 MB

Table of Contents

Contents Preface The Great Question All Countries Should Have Equal Labor Productivity: An Argument Why All Countries Do Not Have Equal Labor Productivity: An Argument On the Definition of Economics The Rest of the Book Well-Being: Its Definition and Content The Development Objective The Search for Better Preferences Social Choice: Its Impossibility and Necessity Summary Three Approaches to Growth Theory: A Reminder What Is to Be Explained: Facts and Semifacts More on Productivity Growth The Growth Process The Role of Factor Prices and Technological Information A Time Path through Capital and Productivity Space The Role of Capital Formation The Capital Goods Sector Some Macro Issues The Big Picture: A Summary A Preliminary: The Labor Market The Roles of Employment Work as a Source of Well-Being Demand for Labor Is It All Pie in the Sky? 6. Entrepreneurship The Entrepreneur as the Source of the Idea of Progress The Entrepreneur as Perceiver and Exploiter of a Specific Profit Opportunity The Entrepreneur as Searcher, Learner, and Changer Conclusions on Entrepreneurship 7. Foreign Transactions Development Strategies: Import Substitution and Outward Orientation The Foreign Sector and Productivity Growth On Importing Knowledge Openness and Preference Development Conclusion The Undervalued Exchange Rate Form of Protection Can All Developing Countries Have an Undervalued Exchange Rate? The Outcome Conclusion The Present Policy Debate Creating the Idea of Progress Policy-Making and Policy Change Government and Better Preferences A Brief Conclusion Epilogue: Another Great Question and More Ignorance References Index
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