Mountains of Debt: Crisis and Change in Renaissance Florence, Victorian Britain, and Postwar America - Hardcover

Veseth, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195064208 ISBN 13: 9780195064209

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1990

Synopsis

Like the United States today, Renaissance Florence and Victorian Britain were the richest, most dynamic economic systems of their times. Yet each succumbed to a fiscal crisis brought on by public debt and taxation and eventually fell into long-term economic decline. Now, public debt and taxation dominate the America policy agenda. Must the United States follow the same dismal pattern of fiscal crisis and economic decline? Mountains of Debt argues that it is not too late for the United States to change directions and suggests a comprehensive program for reform of American fiscal institutions that would reduce the deficit problem and at the same time reverse the long-term structural trends that are both the cause and the effect of the fiscal crisis today. Offering proposals for reducing the deficit, this new analysis could alter the current course of the United States economy.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

This provocative work presents a unique analysis of the current economic problems and policies of the United States based on a comparative historical approach. The study looks at what happens when flourishing economies begin to accumulate large public debts, falling from fiscal balance toward fiscal crisis, where the problem of managing the public debt overwhelms the traditional concerns of public policy.

About the Author:

Michael Veseth is at University of Puget Sound.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0195064208
• ISBN 13: 9780195064209
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256