Faster Growth, Fairer Growth: Policies for a High Road, High Performance Economy

What happened to the land of opportunity? Over the past several decades, the American Dream has been caught in a pincer movement. On the one hand, deep-seated social forces have combined to slow down growth and accelerate inequality. At the same time, sustained and dramatic changes in public policy have worked not to counteract those forces, but to exacerbate them.

America’s 21st-century economic malaise and deepening social divisions have spurred a desperate search for radical alternatives to the status quo. In Faster Growth, Fairer Growth, the Niskanen Center’s Brink Lindsey and Samuel Hammond lay out an ambitious, full-spectrum agenda to undo the damage caused by regulatory capture, counter the forces pushing against inclusive prosperity, and put the United States on a high road, high performance path going forward.

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Table of Contents

Part I. A New Policy Synthesis

• What Went Wrong
• High Performance on the High Road

Part II. Supporting Workers and Protecting Families

• Shift to Level Targeting in Monetary Policy
• Comprehensive Social Insurance Modernization
• Employment Security and Workforce Development
• Strengthen Families with Child Allowances
• Fix Health Insurance with Universal Catastrophic Care

Part III. Liberating the Captured Economy

• The Scale of the Problem
• Shrink the Bloated Financial Sector
• Roll Back “Intellectual Property” Excesses
• Supply-Side Reforms to Boost Competition in Health Care
• Reduce Regulatory Barriers to New Housing

Part IV. Reviving Innovation and Dynamism

• Pursue Aggressive Decarbonization
• Fuel Growth with Expanded Immigration
• Double Down on Science and R&D
• Promote Diversified Economic Development
• Overhaul Environmental Review

Photo by Matthias Groeneveld from Pexels