In this brief, authors Michael Ettlinger, Jordan Hensley, and Julia Vieira analyze how much the governments of different countries spend, and on what, to illuminate the range of fiscal policy options available and provide a basis for determining which approaches work best. They report that the United States ranks twenty-fourth in government…

At the heart of progressivism is the belief that government--not big government, or small government, but effective government--has a critical role to play in ensuring the well being of its citizens. Public spending serves an important function in pursuing economic growth objectives while ensuring that gains are widely distributed to promote…

Whether to adopt national standards and tests has long been a subject of lively debate in the United States. With 47 states now participating in the Common Core State Standards Initiative, and a commitment from Education Secretary Arne Duncan to allocate hundreds of millions in stimulus funds to the development of common tests, the country is…

A comparative analysis of family policy in various nations looks at state financial support for families and in particular how professional women in academia fare internationally with respect to state support for their families. The analysis includes a review of the general development of family support through the industrial revolution and the…

These papers come from a 2001 conference that explored language policy issues at the global, U.S. national, and California regional levels. There are 15 papers in five sections. Section 1, "National Language Policy," includes (1) "Language and Globalization: Why National Policies Matter" (Chester D. Haskell) and (2) "Real…