The Age of Diminished Expectations

This guide to the economic landscape of the 1990s has been revised and updated to include a new introduction in which Krugman connects George Bush's fall from office to simmering dismay over a long-term economic slowdown. There is a new chapter on international finance that focuses primarily on European monetary affairs, and a new chapter on health care that examines why costs have exploded and explains how managed competition and alternative systems would work, and why it is so difficult to control rising health care costs. There are smaller additions throughout the rest of the book. These include: a discussion of how people misunderstand the relationship between productivity and competitiveness; the very minor industrial policy proposals that have been made thus far; new data reflecting even larger gains for the wealthy than have been thought; a prediction that Clinton's tax plan will have only a small impact; a discussion of the junk bond market collapse; and the startling productivity numbers for 1992. Discussions of unemployment and the trade deficit take into account that unemployment has risen, and there is a new section on how the Federal Reserve fumbled, as well as a new assessment of financial markers in light of the recession.