Marking the 200th anniversary of the US Constitution and the 40th year of the West German "Grundgesetz" this book examines the lawmaking bodies of the two countries and their constitutional duties and limitations. This first ever joint US-German parliamentary study compares and contrasts two of the democratic West's most powerful legislatures. The result is a new perspective on the foundations of Western democracy and a useful contribution to German-US understanding.

The U.s. Congress And The German Bundestag: Comparisons Of Democratic Processes

Rivlin, Alice M.

Polsby, Nelson, W.

Livingston, Robert Gerald

Hillenbrand, Martin J.

Thaysen, Uwe

Legal Theory & Systems

Westview Press

In just a few years, the Internet has had a visible impact on the daily lives of many Americans. But the recent demise of many of the "dot coms" that symbolized the Internet revolution has raised warning flags about its future. Until now, discussion of the impact of the Internet on the economy has been mostly speculation. In Beyond the Dot.coms, two of the nation's most respected economists articulate the anticipated economic impact of the Internet over the next five years. Drawing from detailed research conducted by the Brookings Task Force on the Internet and the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy (BRIE) Internet Task Force (see page 10), Robert Litan and Alice Rivlin address the Internet's potential impacts on productivity, prices, and market structure. The research suggests that the most significant economic impact of the Internet will be its potential to increase productivity growth in the existing economy —with cheaper transactions, greater management efficiency, increased competition and broadened markets, more effective marketing and pricing, and increased consumer choice, convenience, and satisfaction. The greatest impact may not be felt in e-commerce, but rather in a wide range of "old economy" arenas, including health care and government.

Beyond the Dot.coms: The Economic Promise of the Internet

Business & Money

Litan, Robert E.

Economics

Brookings Institution Press

In January 1970 Alice M. Rivlin spoke to an audience at the University of California-Berkeley. The topic was developing a more rational approach to decisionmaking in government. If digital video, YouTube, and TED Talks had been inventions of the 1960s, Rivlin's talk would have been a viral hit. As it was, the resulting book, Systematic Thinking for Social Action, spent years on the Brookings Press bestseller list. Is is a very personal and conversational volume about the dawn of new ways of thinking about government.
 As deputy assistant secretary for program coordination, and later as assistant secretary for planning and evaluation, at the Department of Health, Education and Welfare from 1966 to 1969, Rivlin was an early advocate of systems analysis, which had been introduced by Robert McNamara at the Department of Defense as PPBS (planning-programming-budgeting-system).
 While Rivlin brushes aside the jargon, she digs into the substance of systematic analysis and a 'quiet revolution in government. In an evaluation of the evaluators, she issues mixed grades, pointing out where analysts had been helpful in finding solutions and where—because of inadequate data or methods—they had been no help at all.
 Systematic Thinking for Social Action offers important insights for anyone interested in working to find the smartest ways to allocate scarce funds to promote the maximum well-being of all citizens.

Systematic Thinking for Social Action (A Brookings Classic)

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Setting National Priorities: The 1974 Budget

Schultze, Charles L.

Fried, Edward R.

Teeters, Nancy

Brookings Inst Pr

Partisan warfare and gridlock in Washington threaten to squander America’s opportunity to show the world that democracy can solve serious economic problems and ensure widely shared prosperity. Instead of working together to meet the challenges ahead—an aging work force, exploding inequality, climate change, rising debt—our elected leaders are sabotaging our economic future by blaming and demonizing each other in hopes of winning big in the next election. They are weakening America’s capacity for world leadership and the case for democracy here and abroad. 
Alice M. Rivlin, with decades of experience in economic policy making, argues that proven economic policies could lead to sustainable American prosperity and opportunity for all, but crafting them requires the tough, time-consuming work of consensus building and bipartisan negotiation. In a divided country with shifting majorities, major policies must have bipartisan buy-in and broad public support. Otherwise we will have either destabilizing swings in policy or total gridlock in the face of challenges looming at us. 
Rivlin believes that Americans can and must save our hyper-partisan politicians from themselves. She makes the case that on many practical economic issues the public is far less divided than partisan politicians and sensationalist media would have us believe. She draws attention to numerous hopeful efforts to bridge partisan and ideological divides in Washington, in state capitols and city governments, and communities around the country, and advocates a major national effort to enable citizens and future leaders to learn and practice the art of listening to each other and working together to find common ground. 
This book is a practical guide for Americans across the political spectrum who are agonizing over partisan warfare, incivility, and policy gridlock and looking for ways they can help to get our democratic policy process back on a constructive track before it is too late.

Divided We Fall: Why Consensus Matters (Geopolitics in the 21st Century)

Rivlin, Sheri

Rivlin, Allan

The American dream is fading: for nearly two decades, the economy has been performing below par, the quality of life has deteriorated, and the government has not confronted the public problems that concern citizens most. In this provocative book, Alice Rivlin offers a straightforward, nontechnical look at the issues threatening the American dream and proposes a solution: restructure responsibilities between the federal and state government.
 Under her plan, the federal government would eliminate most of its programs in education, housing, highways, social services, economic development, and job training, enabling it to move the federal budget from deficit toward surplus. States would pick up these responsibilities, carrying out a "productivity agenda" to revitalize the American economy. Common shared taxes would give the state adequate revenues to carry out their tasks and would reduce intrastate competition and disparities. The federal government would be freer to deal with increasingly complex international issues and would retain responsibility for programs requiring national uniformity. A primary federal job would be the reform of health care financing to ensure control of costs and to mandate basic insurance coverage for everyone.
 Published in the summer of 1992, Reviving the American Dream was read by presidential candidate Bill Clinton; by year's end, President Clinton appointed its author, Alice Rivlin, as deputy budget director. Today, the ideal in Rivlin's book—and Rivlin herself—are having an impact inside the administration.
 Selected as one of Choice magazine's Outstanding Books of 1993

Reviving the American Dream: The Economy, the States, and the Federal Government

How can we identify who benefits from government programs aimed at solving our social problem and who pays for them? With so many problems, how can we allocate scarce funds to promote the maximum well-being of our citizens?
 In this book, originally presented as the third series of H. Rowan Gaither Lectures in Systems Science at the University of California (Berkeley). Alice M. Rivlin examines the contributions that systematic analysis has made to decisionmaking in the government's "social action" programs—education, health, manpower training, and income maintenance. Drawing on her own experience in government, Mrs. Rivlin indicates where the analysts have been helpful in finding solutions and where—because of inadequate data or methods—they have been no help at all.
 Mrs. Rivlin concludes by urging the widespread implementation of social experimentation and acceptability by the federal government. The first in such a way as to permit valid conclusions about their effectiveness; the second would encourage the adoption of better ways of delivering services by making those who administer programs responsive to their clients. Underlying both is the requirement from comprehensive, reliable performance measures.

Systematic Thinking for Social Action (H. Rowan Gaither Lectures in Systems Science)

Sociology

Systematic Thinking for Social Action

Politics & Government

Reviving the American Dream : The Economy, the States, and the Federal Government

Economic Choices, 1987

The Brookings Institution

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