William J. Baumol: Policy

William J. Baumol was American economist. Explore interesting quotes on policy.
William J. Baumol: 18   quotes 0   likes

“The basic hypothesis is that, while the total supply of entrepreneurs varies among societies, the productive contribution of the society's entrepreneurial activities varies much more because of their allocation between productive activities such as innovation and largely unproductive activities such as rent seeking or organized crime. This allocation is heavily influenced by the relative payoffs society offers to such activities. This implies that policy can influence the allocation of entrepreneurship more effectively than it can influence its supply. Historical evidence from ancient Rome, early China, and the Middle Ages and Renaissance in Europe is used to investigate the hypotheses.”

William J. Baumol

Source: "Entrepreneurship: Productive, unproductive, and destructive," 1996, p. 3

Age

“This book is… devoted to the study of economic policies to enhance the quality of life. Our willingness to embark on so considerable a subject only reflects our conviction that economists as a body have already made sufficient headway on these problems to make such an undertaking worthwhile.”

William J. Baumol

Preface to first edition.
The theory of environmental policy, 1988

Life , Books , Problem , Study

“When the “environmental revolution” arrived in the 1960s, economists were ready and waiting. The economic literature contained an apparently coherent view of the nature of the pollution problem together with a compelling set of implications for public policy. In short, economists saw the problem of environmental degradation as one in which economic agents imposed external costs upon society at large in the form of pollution. With no “prices” to provide the proper incentives for reduction of polluting activities, the inevitable result was excessive demands on the assimilative capacity of the environment. The obvious solution to the problem was to place an appropriate “price,” in this case a tax, on polluting activities so as to internalize the social costs. Marshall and Pigou had suggested such measures many decades earlier. Moreover, pollution and its control through so-called Pigouvian taxes had become a standard textbook case of the application of the principles of microeconomic theory. Economists were thus ready to provide counsel to policy makers on the design of environmental policy.”

William J. Baumol

Source: The theory of environmental policy, 1988, p. 1

Literature , Nature , Problem , Waiting