Review
They say that everyone complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it. In Social Security policy, everyone says it's important to learn from the variety of international experience, but no one until now has offered an easy way to do it. This handy compilation is succinct, informative, and free of obscuring jargon. The volume's contributing experts include many long respected for their objectivity but who here also reveal impressive talents for effective, concise communication. Those who continue to believe that further delay in fixing Social Security is acceptable would do well to read this book and discover what such procrastination has brought to other nations, most particularly Japan. --Charles P. Blahous, Author, Reforming Social Security: For Ourselves and Our Posterity
Anyone concerned about the fiscal state of our Social Security system--and that should be all of us--must welcome the publication of this volume. The authors give us a balanced view of how other countries are coping with their own aging populations and, in so doing, help those of us professionally engaged with these issues think more clearly about the American situation. I found this book enormously helpful. --John L. Palmer, University Professor, Maxwell School, Syracuse University, and Public Trustee for Medicare and Social Security
Penner's book makes abundantly clear that many countries have made at least some progress in reconciling two competing priorities: how to provide a measure of economic stability for public retirement systems and how to provide a foundation of basic economic security for retirees. I hope that we in America will have the courage and the wisdom to strengthen our Social Security system in a way that provides both. --Kenneth S. Apfel, Professor and Director of the Management, Finance and Leadership Program, School of Public Policy, University of Maryland
About the Author
Rudolph G. Penner is a senior fellow at the Urban Institute and holds the Arjay and Frances Miller chair in public policy. Previously, he was a managing director of the Barents Group, a KPMG company. He was director of the Congressional Budget Office from 1983 to 1987. From 1977 to 1983, he was a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Previous posts in government include assistant director for Economic Policy at the Office of Management and Budget, deputy assistant secretary for Economic Affairs at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and senior staff economist at the Council of Economic Advisers. Before 1975, Penner was a professor of economics at the University of Rochester.
He was elected president of the American Tax Policy Institute in 2005 and is past president of the National Economists Club. In 1989, he received the Abramson Prize for the best article published in 1988-1989 in Business Economics and more recently received a prize for the best article published in 2002 in Public Budgeting and Finance. In 2004, he chaired the Commission on Metro Financing for the Washington Metropolitan Area Council of Governments and others and is currently chairing the Committee on the Future of the Fuel Tax for the Transportation Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences.
He is the author of numerous books, pamphlets and articles on tax and spending policy and has authored columns for various newspapers including the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times. His most recent book, co-authored with Isabel Sawhill and Timothy Taylor, is Updating America's Social Contract (W. W. Norton & Company, 2000).
Penner's undergraduate degree is from the University of Toronto and his Ph.D. in economics is from the Johns Hopkins University.
