Aaron studies the Great Society of Johnson's administration, including his opinion that the political backlash to its programs and policies rested not on intrinsic success or failure but on the academe's influence on public opinion. External events, such as war in Vietnam and the dissolution of the civil rights coalition, led disillusioned academics to disregard and speak out against the economic policies through their research.

On the privatization of social security in the U.S.

As the average age of the population continues to rise in industrialized nations, the fiscal impacts of aging demand ever-closer attention. Closing the Deficit examines one oft-discussed approach to the issue encouraging people to work longer than they now do. Workers would spend more years paying taxes and fewer years drawing pension and health benefits. But how much difference to spending and revenues would longer working lives make? What steps could be taken to make longer working lives attractive? And what would happen to older Americans not in a position to prolong their work lives? Leading scholars examine these issues in Closing the Deficit, edited by Brookings economists Gary Burtless and Henry Aaron.

Academic medical centers provide a wide range of crucial services, but many are currently suffering severe financial crises. Henry J. Aaron and a group of disttinguished experts address the key issues and prescribe remedies both regulatory and legislative to ensure that the teaching hospital remains a picture of financial health.

Deciding when and how to retire are amongst the most important decisions people can make. But do they make sound decisions and plan with foresight? Standard economic analysis says yes: the essays in this volume raise serious doubts about such a comforting appraisal.

The social security system affects people throughout most of their lives, at work and in retirement. The supposed effects of social security on saving, labor supply, and the distribution of income figure prominently in current debates about whether and how to change the system. Theorists have developed alternative analytical frameworks for studying social security, but all involve extreme assumptions introduced for the sake of analytical tractability. Each study seems to describe the behavior of some, but not all or even most people. The shortcomings of available data have created additional roadblocks. As a result, the effects of social security on saving and labor supply are difficult to measure, and how such a complex system influences behavior is not at all well understood. Yet decisions on social security cannot be avoided. If analysts cannot agree, policymakers are likely to increase the weight they attach to perceptions of equity, adequacy of benefits, fairness of taxes, and similar qualitative considerations. Hence it is desirable for lay observers to understand the framework that analysts use and the reasons why there is so much uncertainty. This book sheds light on social security issues by examining evidence from economic studies about how the system affects saving, labor supply, and income distribution. It shows that these studies provide little evidence to support or refute assertions that social security has reduced saving, but they do indicate that it has contributed to the trend toward early retirement. The author finds that the aged are now about as well off on the average as the general population and that social security has played a considerable role in bringing about this equality. This volume is the sixteenth in the second series of Brookings Studies of Government Finance.

The well-documented gap between men's and women's earnings has aroused intense debate over the concept of comparable worth, that is, equal pay for work judged to be of equal value. Government, business, labor unions, and the courts have been forced to consider whether workers in dissimilar jobs of comparable worth measured by such criteria as working conditions, degree of difficulty, and knowledge and responsibility required should receive equal wages, and how wage adjustments can be implemented.The issue has provoked inflated rhetoric, litigation, and considerable confusion. In this concise study, Henry J. Aaron and Cameran M. Lougy review the conditions that have sparked the debate and unravel the implications of comparable worth for employers in public and private sectors, for labor union agendas and employer-employee negotiations, and for the administrative and and judicial burdens of the nation's courts. The authors conclude with general guidelines for implementing wage adjustments in ways that would not seriously disrupt society or have a major impact on overall economic efficiency.

"Medicare is a critical element of the American health system, covering most of the health care spending for more than forty million senior citizens and people with disabilities. The program has been popular, but its benefits are limited and it does little to enhance the quality of care received. And it is now growing faster than America's ability to pay for it. How can and should the system be improved? Reforming Medicare offers a clear guide to the debate over Medicare reform - a national discussion that roust not be delayed." "Health policy experts Henry Aaron and Jeanne Lambrew provide a critical examination of the current program as well as the key proposals for reforming it. They evaluate Medicare's success and then explore how the major reform proposals - social insurance, premium support, and consumer-driven models - would affect the system in terms of ensuring access, promoting quality of care, and controlling costs. In clearly illustrating how each strategy would work for a typical beneficiary, the authors reveal the strengths and weaknesses of each approach."--BOOK JACKET.

In this book, Henry Aaron evaluates the critical issues of why the United States spends more on health care than any other nation in the world and how millions of Americans cannot afford basic care for acute illnesses or the costs of long-term health care.