Author: Richard Samans
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The book proposes to reformulate the “source code” of capitalism by integrating the principal institutional dimensions of the social contract into the heart of macroeconomic theory and presenting extensive corresponding reforms of domestic and international economic policy to refocus them on the median living standards, rather than primarily aggregate wealth or GDP, of nations. A general rise in the standard of living is the bottom-line measure of national economic performance, and it depends on the strength of both markets of exchange and institutions in such areas as labour and social protection, financial and corporate governance, competition and rents, anti-corruption, taxation, infrastructure and basic necessities, environmental protection, education and skilling, etc. Extensive comparative data are presented demonstrating that countries at every level of economic development have ample policy space to narrow their social “welfare gaps” – their underperformance on these and other key aspects of household living standards relative to the frontier of leading outcomes and policy practice in peer countries, and that doing so can often also narrow their output gap or underperformance on growth.