Brookings Institution Press
Advice and dissent; the struggle to shape the federal judiciary.
It is the role of the United States Senate to "advise and consent" to nominations submitted for the Federal judiciary, including the Supreme Court. In current times, this supposedly objective process seems to have given way to the worst of partisan politics. In this work, the authors provided a balanced view of the historical and contemporary dynamics at work in this constitutional process. The work separates fact from fiction involving the nomination and approval process, and exposes the process for what it is: part of the robust system of checks and balances put into place by the Founding Fathers. (Annotation ©2010 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Ordinary families, extraordinary lives; assets and poverty reduction in Guayaquil, 1978-2004.
Moser (Brookings Institution and professor of urban development, U. of Manchester) describes how households living in a typical third-world urban slum community struggled to escape poverty while also contesting with the authorities to provide both physical and social infrastructure. In 1978, she says, Indio Guayas was a mangrove swamp on the periphery of Guayaquil, Ecuador, where young families lived without basic services; three decades later it is a consolidated settlement where fewer than one in three household is considered poor. Among the stages in the transformation are squatter housing as a physical asset; leadership, empowerment, and community participation in negotiating for social services; the impact of intra-household dynamics on asset vulnerability and accumulation; and community responses to insecurity. (Annotation ©2010 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Performance incentives; their growing impact on American K-12 education.
With the advent of No Child Left Behind laws, an increased focus has been made on improving student test scores and performance. An emphasis has also been placed on compensating teachers for student improvements, rather than via the old model of pay based on credentials and years of service. How this shift in compensation has changed decision-making in schools, and whether or not it is providing lasting improvements for students is the subject of this collection of contributed essays. The educational experts who offer these papers provide a detailed analysis of the intersection between compensation and performance, challenging notions of just how effective current approaches are working. This is important reading for school administrators and governmental policymakers. (Annotation ©2010 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Prudent lending restored; securitization after the mortgage meltdown.
The original impetus for securitization — the packaging together of loans in trusts which can then be used as collateral for securities — was intended to provide cheaper, more plentiful capital to fuel economic activity. It succeeded, but abuses of the process led to careless lending and a kind of global "musical chairs" treatment of poorly secured collateral which eventually caused the collapse of major lending institutions and much of the world's economy. The economists editing this book have brought together seven papers which discuss causes, effects, and future reforms that will hopefully lead to a more stable, responsible use of securitization as a tool in the post-collapse economy. (Annotation ©2010 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Self-enforcing trade; developing countries and WTO dispute settlement.
Bown, a nonresident fellow in Global Economy and Development at the Brookings Institution, argues that the World Trade Organization (WTO's) dispute settlement process unfairly benefits wealthy countries, and looks at the roles that NGOs, intergovernmental organizations, think tanks, and other stakeholders could play in assisting developing countries in the extended litigation process. The study draws on data on 388 WTO trade disputes between 1995 and 2008. The author proposes a new watchdog institution outside the WTO in order to confront issues related to lack of information, monitoring, and surveillance. Bown teaches in the Department of Economics and International Business School at Brandeis University. (Annotation ©2010 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
What works in development?; thinking big and thinking small.
In light of the continuing lack of evidence for what if anything transforms developing countries into developed ones, theorists, practitioners, and funders are turning away from big expensive projects to small ones. The focus of the seven chapters here is analyzing micropolicy questions and the merits and drawbacks of using randomized controlled trials to measure the effectiveness of the policy. The topics include lessons from randomized evaluations in education and health, the policy irrelevance of the economics of education, high bandwidth development policy, and the presumption of growth policy. (Annotation ©2010 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
