OFF DOMESTIC AFFAIRS STUDIES

ECONOMIC PLANNING AND THE IMPROVEMENT OF ECONOMIC POLICY

THE AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY RESEARCH,
established in 1943, is a publicly supported, nonpartisan research and educational
organization. Its purpose is to assist policy makers, scholars, businessmen, the press
and the public by providing objective analysis of national and international issues.
Views expressed in the institute's publications are those of the authors and do not
necessarily reflect the views of the staff, advisory panels, officers or trustees of AEI.

Institute publications take three major forms:

1. Legislative Analyses—balanced analyses of current proposals before the Congress,
prepared with the help of specialists from the academic world and the fields of
law and government.

2. Studies-in-depth studies and monographs about government programs and major
national and international problems, written by independent scholars.

3. Rational Debates, Meetings and Symposia-proceedings of debates, discussions
and conferences where eminent authorities with contrasting views discuss con-
troversial issues.

ADVISORY BOARD

Paul W. McCracken, Chairman, Edmund Ezra Day University Professor of Business
Administration, University of Michigan

R. H. Coase, Professor of Economics, University of Chicago

Milton Friedman, Paul S. Russell Distinguished Service Professor of Economics,
University of Chicago

Gottfried Haberler, Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy
Research

C. Lowell Harriss, Professor of Economics, Columbia University

George Lenczowski, Professor of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley
Robert A. Nisbet, Albert Schweitzer Professor of the Humanities, Columbia University
James A. Robinson, President, University of West Florida

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Herman J. Schmidt, Chairman of the Board

William J. Baroody, President

William G. McClintock, Treasurer

SENIOR STAFF

Anne Brunsdale, Director of Publications
Joseph G. Butts, Director of Legislative
Analysis

Robert B. Helms, Director of Health
Policy Studies

Thomas F. Johnson, Director of Research
Gary L. Jones, Assistant to the President
for Administration

Richard M. Lee, Director of Planning
and Development

Richard J. Farrell

Dean P. Fite

Richard B. Madden

Edward J. Mitchell, Director, National
Energy Project

W. S. Moore, Director of Legal Policy
Studies

Robert J. Pranger, Director of Foreign
and Defense Policy Studies

Louis M. Thompson, Jr., Assistant to
the President for Communciation

Herbert Stein is A. Willis Robertson professor of economics, Univer-
sity of Virginia, and former chairman of the President's Council of
Economic Advisers.

Domestic Affairs Study 38, September 1975
ISBN 0-8447-3183-8

Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 75-27396

1975 by American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research,
Washington, D. C. Permission to quote from or to reproduce materials in
this publication is granted when due acknowledgment is made.

Printed in the United States of America

Democracy and Freedom in the Plan

Can Everyone Plan at Once? 23
Democratic Coercion 24

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What Can We Expect?

Improving Economic Policy

Improving Economic Statistics 28

Can the Progress of Economics Be Stimulated?
Organization of Federal Decision Making 31

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