Individuals and families make key decisions that impact many aspects of financial stability and determine the future of the economy. These decisions involve balancing current sacrifice against future benefits. People have to decide how much to invest in health care, exercise, their diet, and insurance. They must decide how much debt to take on, and how much to save. And they make choices about jobs that determine employment and unemployment levels. "Forward-Looking Decision Making" is about modeling this individual or family-based decision making using an optimizing dynamic programming model.

Robert Hall first reviews ideas about dynamic programs and introduces new ideas about numerical solutions and the representation of solved models as Markov processes. He surveys recent research on the parameters of preferences--the intertemporal elasticity of substitution, the Frisch elasticity of labor supply, and the Frisch cross-elasticity. He then examines dynamic programming models applied to health spending, long-term care insurance, employment, entrepreneurial risk-taking, and consumer debt.

Linking theory with data and applying them to real-world problems, "Forward-Looking Decision Making" uses dynamic optimization programming models to shed light on individual behaviors and their economic implications.

First proposed twenty-five years ago, the flat tax concept has since been adopted by six states-Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Pennsylvania-and several countries around the world. In this new and updated edition of The Flat Tax, Robert Hall and Alvin Rabushka set forth what many believe is the most fair, efficient, simple, and workable tax reform plan on the table: tax all income, once only, at a uniform rate of 19 percent. Hall and Rabushka go beyond mere academic abstraction, designing new tax forms, rewriting tax regulations, and working out all the practical details. They show how all wage earners would pay less tax than under the current system, flat tax plan tax returns could be filed on a postcard, and April 15 would no longer be a national nightmare!

The differences between: the 3 relationship conditions, the 3 "types" of"involvement," and, the 3 levels of affectionTo understand and to empower your "Personal Operating System"To share the "authentic" you by speaking your" truth" and living your brand(s)To identify and to understand the 4 "social styles" and the 4 "temperaments"To understand what creates and maintains healthy "rapport"To improve your "friending" behaviors and to live by the "relationship pact"To identify the 4 "attachment styles" and to increase your "emotional intelligence"To manage your "relationship cycles" effectively using 7 "relationship strategies"To identify "introverts" and "extroverts" and to avoid undesirable "control dramas"To identify and to grow new friendships from compatible "acquaintanceships"using the relationship "profiler"

The Science of Auctions, Stock Markets, and E-Markets

Where and how electronic deal making will flourish and common pitfalls for entrepreneurs and investors.

In Deal Engines, leading economist Robert E. Hall explains the underlying principles of auctions and provides sweeping insight for anyone curious to understand and exploit them. Drawing on decades of research that includes Nobel Prize-winning discoveries, Hall explains that how you set up a market has a lot to do with the deals that result. Moving from examples as straightforward as shopping for a car to others as complex as the mechanisms of stock exchanges, he describes the various types of deal engines that can be used to conduct transactions, including auctions, real-time exchanges, and posted-price sales engines. Hall analyzes the qualities of the markets these deal engines give rise to, with an eye to practical outcomes, and provides invaluable information and guidance to everyone from entrepreneurs working on a business plan to buyers on eBay. Originally published in hardcover under the title Digital Dealing.

"This book is brilliant at bringing together Nobel Prize theory and real-world business."—Barry Nalebuff, co-author of Co-opetition

In the upcoming debates over fundamental tax reform, the flat tax will be a leading proposal for making federal taxation more efficient, fair, and simple. This volume presents a spirited and informative exchange on the flat tax by noted proponents and doubters.