In Last Exit Clifford Winston reminds us that transportation services and infrastructure in the United States were originally introduced by private firms. The case for subsequent public ownership and management of the system was weak, in his view, and here he assesses the case for privatization and deregulation to greatly improve Americans' satisfaction with their transportation systems.

Last Exit: Privatization and Deregulation of the U.S. Transportation System

Business & Money

Winston, Clifford

Economics

Brookings Institution Press

Brookings Papers on Economic Activity (BPEA) provides academic and business economists, government officials, and members of the financial and business communities with timely research of current economic issues.  Contents include:  Standard Setting in High-Definition Television, Joseph Farell and Carl Shapiro  Governance Structure, Managerial Characteristics, and Firm Performance in the Deregulated Rail Industry, Ann F. Friedlaender, Ernst R. Berndt, and Gerard McCullough  Productivity Dynamics in Manufacturing Plants, Martin Neil Baily, Charles Hulten and David Campbell  Race and School Quality Since Brown v. Board of Education, Michael A. Boozer, Alan B. Krueger, and Shari Wolkon  The Structure and Performance of the Money Management Industry, Josef Lakonishok, Andrei Shleifer, and Robert W. Vishny  Carbon Taxes and Economic Welfare, Dale W. Jorgenson, Daniel T. Slesnick, and Peter J. Wilcoxen

Brookings Papers on Economic Activity Microeconomics, 1992

Baily, Martin Neil

First Thing We Do, Let's Deregulate All the Lawyers

Not many Americans think of the legal profession as a monopoly, but it is. Abraham Lincoln, who practiced law for nearly twenty-five years, would likely not have been allowed to practice today. Without a law degree from an American Bar Association–sanctioned institution, a would-be lawyer is allowed to practice law in only a few states. ABA regulations also prevent even licensed lawyers who work for firms that are not owned and managed by lawyers from providing legal services. At the same time, a slate of government policies has increased the demand for lawyers' services. Basic economics suggests that those entry barriers and restrictions combined with government-induced demand for lawyers will continue to drive the price of legal services even higher.Clifford Winston, Robert Crandall, and Vikram Maheshri argue that these increased costs cannot be economically justified. They create significant social costs, hamper innovation, misallocate the nation's labor resources, and create socially perverse incentives. In the end, attorneys support inefficient policies that preserve and enhance their own wealth, to the detriment of the general population.To fix this situation, the authors propose a novel solution: deregulation of the legal profession. Lowering the barriers to entry will force lawyers to compete more intensely with each other and to face competition from nonlawyers and firms that are not owned and managed by lawyers. The book provides a much-needed analysis of why legal costs are so high and how they can be reduced without sacrificing the quality of legal services.

Crandall, Robert W.

Maheshri, Vikram

Industries

This comprehensive survey of transportation economic policy pays homage to a classic work, Techniques of Transportation Planning, by renowned transportation scholar John R. Meyer. With contributions from leading economists in the field, it includes added emphasis on policy developments and analysis. The book covers the basic analytic methods used in transportation economics and policy analysis; focuses on the automobile, as both the mainstay of American transportation and the source of some of its most serious difficulties; covers key issues of urban public transportation; and analyzes the impact of regulation and deregulation on the U.S. airline, railroad, and trucking industries. In addition to the editors, the contributors are Alan A. Altshuler, Harvard University; Ronald R. Braeutigam, Northwestern University; Robert E. Gallamore, Union Pacific Railroad; Arnold M. Howitt, Harvard University; Gregory K. Ingram, The Wold Bank; John F. Kain, University of Texas at Dallas; Charles Lave, University of California, Irvine; Lester Lave, Carnegie Mellon University; Robert A. Leone, Boston University; Zhi Liu, The World Bank; Herbert Mohring, University of Minnesota; Steven A. Morrison, Northeastern University; Katherine M. O'Regan, Yale University; Don Pickrell, U.S. Department of Transportation; John M. Quigley, University of California, Berkeley; Ian Savage, Northwestern University; and Kenneth A. Small, University of California Irvine.

Essays in Transportation Economics and Policy: A Handbook in Honor of John R. Meyer

Meyer, John R.

Tye, W. B.

Tye, William B.

<div> Better public policies can make the road smoother for self-driving vehicles and the society that soon will depend on them. Whether you find the idea of autonomous vehicles to be exciting or frightening, the truth is that they will soon become a significant everyday presence on streets and highways--not just a novel experiment attracting attention or giggles and sparking fears of runaway self-driving cars. The emergence of these vehicles represents a watershed moment in the history of transportation. If properly encouraged, this innovation promises not only to vastly improve road travel and generate huge benefits to travelers and businesses, but to also benefit the entire economy by reducing congestion and virtually eliminating vehicle accidents. The impacts of autonomous vehicles on land use, employment, and public finance are likely to be mixed. But widely assumed negative effects are generally overstated because they ignore plausible adjustments by the public and policymakers that could ameliorate them. This book by two transportation experts argues that policy analysts can play an important and constructive role in identifying and analyzing important policy issues and necessary steps to ease the advent of autonomous vehicles. Among the actions that governments must take are creating a framework for vehicle testing, making appropriate investments in the technology of highway networks to facilitate communication involving autonomous vehicles, and reforming pricing and investment policies to enable operation of autonomous vehicles to be safe and efficient. The authors argue that policymakers at all levels of government must address these and other issues sooner rather than later. Prompt and effective actions outlined in this book are necessary to ensure that autonomous vehicles will be safe and efficient when the public begins to adopt them as replacements for current vehicles. </div>

Autonomous Vehicles: The Road to Economic Growth?

Karpilow, Quentin

Product Description \nDeregulating the legal profession will benefit society by improving access to legal services and the efficacy of public policies. 
Lawyers dominate a judicial system that has come under fire for limiting access to its services to primarily the most affluent members of society. Lawyers also have a pervasive influence throughout other parts of government. This is the first book offering a critical comprehensive overview of the legal profession’s role in failing to serve the majority of the public and in contributing to the formation of inefficient public policies that reduce public welfare. 
In Trouble at the Bar, the authors use an economic approach to provide empirical support for legal reformers who are concerned about their own profession. The authors highlight the adverse effects of the legal profession’s self-regulation, which raises the cost of legal education, decreases the supply of lawyers, and limits the public’s access to justice to the point where, in general, only certified lawyers can execute even simple contracts. At the same time, barriers to entry that limit competition create a closed environment that inhibits valid approaches to analyzing and solving legal problems that are at the heart of effective public policy. 
Deregulating the legal profession, the authors argue, would allow more people to provide a variety of legal services without jeopardizing their quality, reduce the cost of those services, spur competition and innovation in the private sector, and increase the quality of lawyers who pursue careers in the public sector. Legal practitioners would enjoy more fulfilling careers, and society in general and its most vulnerable members in particular would benefit greatly.\nReview \nTrouble at the Bar is an extraordinary book. It surveys and analyzeswith great conceptual and empirical sophisticationthe organization of the entire U.S. legal system and the legal professionals who staff it, from the dreams of students choosing to attend lower-rated law schools to lawyers working in the office of the Solicitor General to the lawyers on the Supreme Court itself. Every person in America should understand at some level the operation of the legal profession. Trouble at the Bar provides the basis for that understanding.George L. Priest, Edward J. Phelps Professor of Law and Economics, Yale Law School\nTrouble at the Bar takes an empirically based hard look at the state of the legal profession in the United States. It examines the barriers in place for regulating entry through law schools and restrictions placed on purveyors of legal services. It makes a compelling case for deregulating many aspects of the profession and opening it up to fresh approaches. It is a serious book about a serious problem and warrants a close read.Jame J. Heckman, Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor in Economics, University of Chicago; research fellow, American Bar Foundation\nFrom the Back Cover \nThis is the first book to offer a critical comprehensive overview of the legal profession’s failure to make its services widely available to the public and to use its pervasive presence and influence in government to promote more efficient and equitable public policies. 
In Trouble at the Bar, the authors argue that the legal profession’s self-regulation is the source of those problems because it raises the cost of a legal education and decreases the supply of lawyers. It also creates a closed environment that inhibits valid approaches to analyzing and solving legal problems that are at the heart of effective public policy. 
Deregulating the legal profession, the authors argue, would allow more people to provide a variety of legal services without jeopardizing their quality, reduce the cost of those services, spur competition among and innovation in private law firms, and increase the quality of lawyers who pursue careers in the public sector. Legal practitioners would enjoy more f

Trouble at the Bar: An Economics Perspective on the Legal Profession and the Case for Fundamental Reform

<div> Focusing on ways that markets work with, rather than against, governments to enhance public welfare. The optimal mix of market forces and government intervention to allocate resources is one of the longest-standing problems facing human civilization. At the theoretical extremes, resources in centrally planned economies are allocated by the government, while resources in capitalist economies are allocated by private markets. In practice, market forces and government interventions co-exist to allocate goods and services in a political environment with shifting pressures to give one approach more responsibility than the other. Current public attitudes toward markets are at a low point in the wake of the Great Recession and the growth in income inequality that began in the 1970s. However, in this book, noted Brookings economist Clifford Winston argues that it is a serious mistake to overlook that markets will be a critical part of the solution to any public objective--whether it be to reduce inequality, stimulate long-term growth, slow climate change, or eliminate COVID 19. In Winston's view, policymakers should be much more aware of the many ways that markets help government to achieve economic and social goals and the potential that markets have to provide greater assistance in achieving those goals. Winston synthesizes the empirical evidence on the efficacy of markets in helping to protect consumers against anti-competitive behavior and when technology appears to prevent price competition; to enable individuals to make more informed decisions; and to reduce negative externalities, improve public production, and encourage innovations. Importantly, Winston presents evidence indicating how markets can also help to reduce poverty, promote fairness in labor markets, and provide merit goods. Winston subjects his assessment to a robustness test by explaining how market forces have helped to address the COVID-19 pandemic by, for example, finding new ways for people to work safely and providing incentives for pharmaceutical companies to develop safe and effective vaccines. Winston takes a proactive approach in his conclusion by suggesting the formation of a major "Commission" composed of academics, policymakers, and businesspeople. Such a panel could explore how market forces could provide greater help to government to address economic and social problems and could provide specific recommendations to facilitate market solutions where appropriate. </div>

Gaining Ground: Markets Helping Government

Education & Reference

Revitalizing a Nation

The US transportation system is composed of interconnected sub-systems that provide urban and intercity passenger and freight service and that operate by using infrastructure that facilitates surface, water, and air transportation. Transportation reduces the cost of distance, which includes the monetary cost, travel or shipping time, and safety consequences of moving people and goods from their origins to their destinations. An efficient transportation system provides the foundation for the development and growth of selected industries as well as an entire economy by enabling individuals and firms to be more productive at their destinations. As the US emerged from World War II, the evolution of the transportation system was spurred by large taxpayer-funded investments to build the Interstate Highway System, construct new airports to accommodate the longer takeoff distances of jets, and design new suburban rail transit systems. At first blush, it appeared that the US was on its way to building the best transportation system money could buy. However, by the 1960s, economists began to take issue with the so-called engineering approach to improving a transportation system, which involved increasing government spending and investment without considering efficient policies to optimize the system's performance that could reduce public spending and investment. Yet, as evidenced by the $1 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act signed by President Biden in November 2021, large government expenditures continue to be prioritized as the primary way to improve transportation. In our book, Revitalizing A Nation: Competition and Innovation in the US Transportation System, we argue that it would be far more efficient and equitable if US policymakers prioritized greater competition and innovation instead of relying on taxpayer-funded spending to significantly improve the transportation system. Beginning in the mid-1970s, deregulation demonstrated that efficient policies could significantly improve the intercity passenger and freight transportation system by increasing competition among airlines, railroads, and trucks and by stimulating technological and operating innovations that reduced the modes' costs and prices and improved service quality. We provide evidence that ridesharing has stimulated competition in urban transportation and greatly benefited travelers and we call on policymakers to withdraw any obstacles that prevent ridesharing companies from competing in urban areas. We also present evidence that policymakers could generate greater competition in all forms of transportation that would benefit travelers and shippers by: --Negotiating open skies airline pricing and service agreements on US international routes with all countries. --Granting foreign airlines cabotage rights to serve US domestic routes, which could spur global deregulation that would facilitate seamless international air travel. --Privatizing airports and air traffic control so both airports and airlines could operate more effectively and compete more intensely. --Privatizing ports so they could operate more efficiently and compete more intensely. --Fully deregulating freight railroads and ocean shipping by eliminating the Surface Transportation Board and by repealing the Jones Act and Foreign Dredge Act and eliminating ocean rate conferences. --Conducting highway privatization experiments to explore the potential benefits and feasibility of private highway competition in the United States. Government also has a critical role to play in the transportation system's future adoption of innovations by preparing and upgrading infrastructure to facilitate its use by autonomous electric cars, trucks, buses, railroads, ships, as well as air taxis and airborne drones. We provide preliminary evidence that autonomous modes have the potential to provide enormous benefits to travelers, shippers, and the overall economy by improving service times and service time reliability and safety. The most disadvantaged members of society will especially benefit from automation because their accessibility to transportation will be greatly improved. In the final analysis, by creating a stronger culture of competition and innovation in the US transportation system, policymakers can revitalize the nation without spending enormous sums of public funds to do so.

Revitalizing a Nation: Competition and Innovation in the US Transportation System

Yan, Jia

The US transportation system is composed of interconnected sub-systems that provide urban and intercity passenger and freight service and that operate by using infrastructure that facilitates surface, water, and air transportation. Transportation reduces the cost of distance, which includes the monetary cost, travel or shipping time, and safety consequences of moving people and goods from their origins to their destinations. An efficient transportation system provides the foundation for the development and growth of selected industries as well as an entire economy by enabling individuals and firms to be more productive at their destinations.\nAs the US emerged from World War II, the evolution of the transportation system was spurred by large taxpayer-funded investments to build the Interstate Highway System, construct new airports to accommodate the longer takeoff distances of jets, and design new suburban rail transit systems. At first blush, it appeared that the US was on its way to building the best transportation system money could buy.\nHowever, by the 1960s, economists began to take issue with the so-called engineering approach to improving a transportation system, which involved increasing government spending and investment without considering efficient policies to optimize the system’s performance that could reduce public spending and investment. Yet, as evidenced by the $1 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act signed by President Biden in November 2021, large government expenditures continue to be prioritized as the primary way to improve transportation.\nIn our book, Revitalizing A Nation: Competition and Innovation in the US Transportation System, we argue that it would be far more efficient and equitable if US policymakers prioritized greater competition and innovation instead of relying on taxpayer-funded spending to significantly improve the transportation system. Beginning in the mid-1970s, deregulation demonstrated that efficient policies could significantly improve the intercity passenger and freight transportation system by increasing competition among airlines, railroads, and trucks and by stimulating technological and operating innovations that reduced the modes’ costs and prices and improved service quality. We provide evidence that ridesharing has stimulated competition in urban transportation and greatly benefited travelers and we call on policymakers to withdraw any obstacles that prevent ridesharing companies from competing in urban areas.\nWe also present evidence that policymakers could generate greater competition in all forms of transportation that would benefit travelers and shippers by: 
—Negotiating open skies airline pricing and service agreements on US international routes with all countries. 
—Granting foreign airlines cabotage rights to serve US domestic routes, which could spur global deregulation that would facilitate seamless international air travel. 
—Privatizing airports and air traffic control so both airports and airlines could operate more effectively and compete more intensely. 
Privatizing ports so they could operate more efficiently and compete more intensely. 
—Fully deregulating freight railroads and ocean shipping by eliminating the Surface Transportation Board and by repealing the Jones Act and Foreign Dredge Act and eliminating ocean rate conferences. 
—Conducting highway privatization experiments to explore the potential benefits and feasibility of private highway competition in the United States.\nGovernment also has a critical role to play in the transportation system’s future adoption of innovations by preparing and upgrading infrastructure to facilitate its use by autonomous electric cars, trucks, buses, railroads, ships, as well as air taxis and airborne drones. We provide preliminary evidence that autonomous modes have the potential to provide enormous benefits to travelers, shippers, and the overall economy by improving service times and service time reliability

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Winston, Clifford. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Winston, Clifford

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Winston, Clifford. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Last Exit: Privatization and Deregulation of the U.S. Transportation System

Brookings Papers on Economic Activity Microeconomics, 1992

First Thing We Do, Let's Deregulate All the Lawyers

First Thing We Do, Let's Deregulate All the Lawyers

Essays in Transportation Economics and Policy: A Handbook in Honor of John R. Meyer

Autonomous Vehicles: The Road to Economic Growth?

Trouble at the Bar: An Economics Perspective on the Legal Profession and the Case for Fundamental Reform

Gaining Ground: Markets Helping Government

Revitalizing a Nation: Competition and Innovation in the US Transportation System

Revitalizing a Nation