Tackling Inequality

Richard Layard is one of Britain's foremost applied economists, whose work has had a profound impact on the policy debate in Britain and abroad. This book contains his most influential articles on education, equality and income distribution and on the lessons of economic transition in Eastern Europe. It is published along with a companion volume. Inequality argues that lifetime inequality is the basic inequality we should worry about. In this context education is a powerful instrument of redistribution, as well as a national investment. Cash redistribution has efficiency costs which can be calculated, but it may also serve to discourage inefficient over-work arising from each person's efforts to earn more than his neighbour. A final series of essays is based on Layard's recent work on reform strategies in Russia and Poland. The book opens with Richard Layard's personal credo 'Why I became an economist'.

Table of Contents:
Why I am an Economist PART A: EDUCATION AND INEQUALITY Introduction to Part A On Measuring the Redistribution of Lifetime Income Family Income Distribution: Explanation and Policy Evaluation Education Versus Cash Redistribution: The Lifetime Context The Causes of Poverty The Effect of Collective Bargaining on Relative and Absolute Wages Human Capital and Earnings: British Evidence and a Critique The Screening Hypothesis and the Returns to Education Capital-Skill Complementarity, Income Distribution and Output Accounting Married Women's Participation and Hours Why are More Women Working in Britain? On the Use of Distributional Weights in Social Cost-Benefit Analysis Human Satisfactions and Public Policy Economic Theories of Educational Planning University Efficiency and University Finance The Cost-Effectiveness of the New Media in Higher Education The Pool of Ability The Thatcher Miracle? Lifelong Learning PART B: TRANSITION Introduction to Part B How to Privatise Post-Stabilization Inflation in Poland Who Gained and Who Lost From Russian Credit Expansion? Can Russia Control Inflation? How Much Unemployment is Needed for Restructuring? The Russian Experience Why So Much Pain? Appendix: Publications by Richard Layard Index

About the Author :
RICHARD LAYARD is Director of the LSE's Centre for Economic Performance. He has worked for many years on the problems of unemployment and inflation and is co-author of the influential book Unemployment: Macroeconomic Performance and the Labour Market. In 1985 he founded the Employment Institute and was its Chairman from 1987-92. During the 1970s he worked on income distribution, co-authoring The Causes of Poverty for the Royal Commission on the Distribution of Income and was a part-time consultant to the Treasury. During the 1980s he was chairman of the European Commission's Macroeconomics Policy Group, and then co-chairman of the World Economy Group set up by the UN University. He was a member of the Commission on Public Policy and British Business whose report Promoting Prosperity was published in 1997. Following the General Election of 1997, he has worked as a consultant to the Department of Education and Employment. In November 1991 Yegor Gaidar invited him to become an adviser to the Russian government's economic staff. He has acted in that capacity ever since and heads a team of 3 Westerners and 3 Russians working in Moscow with the economic staff of the government. The team produces Russian Economic Trends, a comprehensive monthly review of the Russian economy.