For the first time in its history, the United States has had a sixteen-year expansion punctuated only by one short and shallow recession in 1991. Wall Street has continuously set new records, having risen more than tenfold since the bull market began in 1982. Is this just the beginning--or will a break in the market lead to another depression? How will Asia’s economic collapse and Europe’s economic union affect the United States? Who would you turn to for insight?

In Economic Puppetmasters: Lessons from the Halls of Power, Lawrence B. Lindsey draws from his rich experiences as a governor of the Federal Reserve Board and as an international economic consultant to provide unique insight into the human motivations and the decision-making processes that shape global economic events and affect business and politics at home. This new book is a guide to how the world’s economic decision-makers think, what drives them, and what limits their scope of action.

Lindsey probes the minds of Alan Greenspan, chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board; Eisuke Sakakibara, vice minister of finance in Japan; Helmut Kohl, former chancellor of Germany; and George Soros, arguably the world’s leading financier. The author explains the intended and unintended effects of the choices these individuals make on both the domestic and the international political economy.

Lindsey also argues that the current bureaucratic and philosophical structure of the leading nations of the world was designed to battle past challenges, most notably the Cold War. He asserts that nations can effectively confront the new economic and financial crises only by unleashing the power of democratic capitalism to establish innovative global economic arrangements. He calls for people to demand that their systems respond with energy and resourcefulness to the new financial order.

Combining the disciplines of economics, political science, finance, and history, Economic Puppetmasters (AEI Press, December 7, 1998) promises to inform corporate executives and personal investors alike as well as any reader who is interested in world affairs and the global political economy.

Lawrence B. Lindsey is a resident scholar and holder of the Arthur F. Burns Chair in Economics at AEI. The author of The Growth Experiment: How the New Tax Policy Is Transforming the U.S. Economy (Basic Books, 1990), he served as a governor of the Federal Reserve Board from 1991 to 1997. He is also Managing Director of Economic Strategies, an economic advisory service based in New York City. He is a former professor of Economics at Harvard University. Dr. Lindsey also served three years on the staff of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Reagan Administration, during which he was senior staff economist for tax policy.