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This paper focuses on two books that Robert Heilbroner wrote with Peter Bernstein on public finance – A Primer on Government Spending (1963) and The Debt and the Deficit (1989). It also discusses how the economic world changed between the early 1960s and the late 1980s, and how these changes affected their books. Primer introduced Keynesian economics, and the possibility that government policy and deficits could be forces for good in the world. Debt focused exclusively on government deficits and public debt. Changing circumstances made this work a more difficult undertaking. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, government budget deficits were small, growth was sluggish, and Keynesianism was the dominant paradigm in macroeconomics. Primer explained Keynesian public finance, why tax cuts would spur spending and growth, and why we should not worry about government debt under these circumstances. By the 1980s, Keynes was vanquished, deficits were ballooning, and Keynesian public finance was under attack. Contrary to the conventional wisdom at the time, Debt advocated government deficits along the lines proposed by Keynes but not along the lines enacted during the Reagan administration. Nonetheless, there were many similarities in these two works. Both made a case for an active government role in creating a good society; and both argued that when done correctly deficit spending created no economic problems and had many benefits.

We argue that the United States has experienced a decline of economic, political, and military power since the 1970s, and that this decline can be attributed in part to the fragmentation of the American corporate elite. In the mid-twentieth century, this elite – constrained by a highly legitimate state, a relatively powerful labor movement, and an active financial community – adopted a moderate and pragmatic strategy for dealing with the political issues of the day. The “enlightened self-interest” of corporate leaders contributed to a strong economy with a relatively low level of inequality and an expanding middle class. This arrangement broke down in the 1970s, however, as increasing foreign competition and two energy crises led to spiraling inflation and lower profits. In response, the corporate elite waged an aggressive (and ultimately successful) assault on government regulation and organized labor. This success had the paradoxical effect of undermining the elite’s own sources of cohesion, however. Having won the war against government and labor, the group no longer needed to be organized. The marginalization of the commercial banks and the acquisition wave of the 1980s exacerbated the fragmentation of the corporate elite. No longer able to act collectively by the 1990s, the corporate elite was now incapable of addressing issues of business and societal-wide concern. Although increasingly able to gain individual favors from the state, the elite’s collective weakness has contributed to the political gridlock and social decay that plague American society in the twenty-first century.

Alvin Hansen and John Williams’ Fiscal Policy Seminar at Harvard University is widely regarded as a key mechanism for the spread of Keynesianism in the United States. An original and regular participant, Richard A. Musgrave was invited to prepare remarks for the fiftieth anniversary of the seminar in 1988. These were never published, though a copy was filed with Musgrave’s papers at Princeton University. Their reproduction here is important for several reasons. First, it is one of the last reminiscences of the original participants. Second, the remarks make an important contribution to our understanding of the Harvard School of macro-fiscal policy. Third, the remarks provide interesting insights into Musgrave’s views on national economic policymaking as well as the intersection between theory and practice. The reminiscence demonstrates the importance of the seminar in shifting Musgrave’s research focus and moving him to a more pragmatic approach to public finance.

X = multiple interpretations

The events surrounding the financial crisis of 2008 are well known, and subject to a broad level of agreement. Less accepted are theories regarding the larger context within which this crisis was able to unfold. Much has been made of the financialization of the American economy and the lax regulation of new financial instruments, both of which stem from the trend toward a laissez-faire economic policy that has characterized the United States since the late 1970s. I do not take issue with these claims. Instead, I argue that these developments have an earlier and deeper source: a breakdown in the ability of large American corporations to provide collective solutions to economic and social problems, a phenomenon that I term “the decline of the American corporate elite.” From a group with a relatively moderate political perspective and a pragmatic strategic orientation, this elite, through a series of historical developments, became a fragmented, largely ineffectual group, with a high degree of societal legitimacy but a paradoxical lack of power. I trace the history of this group, from its origins in the early 1900s, through its heyday in the post-World War II period, to its decline beginning in the 1970s and escalating in the 1980s. I argue that the lack of coordination within the American business community created the conditions for the crises of the post-1980 period – including the massive breakdown of 2008 – to occur.

Offshore financial centres are coming under increasing pressure from both the OECD and the European Union. They are seen by many bureaucrats and politicians in OECD countries as facilitating criminal activities such as laundering drug money as well as tax evasion and tax avoidance by residents of high‐tax welfare states. While there are good reasons for nation states to cooperate to suppress criminal activity, this is not true in relation to tax competition. The notion that by engaging in ‘harmful’ tax competition, offshore financial centres are damaging the legitimate interests of OECD nations has no sound foundation in economic theory. Competition in tax matters is beneficial and world welfare enhancing. Governments of offshore financial centres serve their own and the world's interests by providing zero or low tax environments for global business and investment and they are right to insist that treaties on criminal matters should not be used to enforce other countries' tax claims.

The paper aims to address the recent debate over the “relevance lost” of business school research and points to the establishment of neoliberal economic policy during the past three decades as an example of social change that has not been thoroughly theorized in business school research.

The literature on neoliberalism is reviewed and, more specifically, its implications for the financialization of industry and the widespread use of financial theory in corporate governance. The paper outlines some of the consequences of neoliberalism, pointing out the connections between the growth of the finance industry and the 2008 financial crisis.

The paper demonstrates that the financialization of industry and the institutionalization of finance theory, as the guiding corporate governance model used in the new millennium, have led to a concentration of capital in the finance industry. As a consequence, other productive investments have been postponed. Despite such shifts in corporate governance and economic policy more broadly, neoliberalism is a relatively marginal topic of discussion in business school research.

The study stresses the need for broadening the scope of business school research and addressing more long-term institutional changes in economic policy and corporate governance.

The paper emphasizes the need, not only for promoting practitioner relevance in business school research, but also for enacting an ambitious research agenda of broader social relevance.

One component of revenue forecast error has been attributed to the phenomena of consistent underestimation bias due asymmetrical loss. Because underestimation of revenue forecast results in less loss to forecasters than overestimations, there appears to be a bias for forecasters to underestimate revenue forecasts. This paper confirms this hypothesis. Additionally, with the greater usage of national forecasting organizations that provide economic forecasts on which revenue forecasts are based, a secondary source of forecaster bias may be present in many state level forecasts. This hypothesis is supported by the increase in number of states using such organizations and a decrease in the standard deviation of the annual mean percentage state forecast error.

The article provides a comparative critique of the financial underpinnings of the Great Depression of the 1930s and the recent wave of financial crises. The collapse of the financial systems in many developing nations, the bankruptcies in the Anglo-Saxon corporate sectors and a threat of more sovereign defaults on behalf of emerging markets suggest that the current wave of global financial fragility and recession rivals that of the Great Depression of the 1930s. The paper examines key elements that account for the crisis-prone nature of global capitalism: the political discipline of neo-liberalism, debt-driven expansion of the privatised financial markets, and the profound disarticulation of the financial and real economies. These factors suggests that the risk of a global depression is by no means hypothetical, and unless effective and collaborative efforts are made to tame the inherently unstable regime of global finance, even major world economies are faced with a prolonged period of financial turbulence and economic stagnation. The paper concludes by pondering the possibility of a paradigmatic shift in the transnational political consensus that can prevent a global repetition of the 1930s. While the increased awareness of financial instability and crisis may indeed prompt some ad hoc adjustments in national and foreign economic policies of major capitalist powers, in the long run these measures will be insufficient to prevent a major financial and economic disaster.