[The Boston Globe Online][Boston.com] [Boston Globe Online / Business] [ Send this story to a friend | Easy-print version | Add to Daily User ] Matter-of-fact US [Image] ADVERTISEMENTS economics With federal [Image] reports, read what you need, skip the [Image] rest By Carolyn Shaw Bell, 3/7/2000 [Image]t won't knock ''Harry Potter'' off the bestseller list, but it's the same sort of treatment of ''magic'' (read economics and the economy) in matter-of-fact terms as any of those books. And it should, like the Harry Potter series, have a wide appeal, particularly if readers are sensible enough, like Harry, to pick the parts they understand and want to read and skip the others. ''It'' is the Annual Report of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President, released Feb. 10 with the President's Economic Report to Congress. So why should any reader of this column take a look at this year's version? Because in reporting on the nation's economic performance during 1999 and the outlook for 2000 and beyond, it begins almost every discussion with a look backward and a shot of economic history, sometimes that of the entire 20th century, sometimes of a shorter period. This means there are some fascinating timeline diagrams. If computers, for instance, have seemed to erupt and suddenly overrun our daily lives, their growth as household possessions mirrors faithfully the earlier acceleration of television, home appliances like refrigerators and vacuum cleaners, electric power, and automobiles. Contrary to the widespread belief that World War II prompted the surge in women's employment outside the home, a timeline shows two-earner families did not become the norm until the 1970s. True, women poured into factories during wartime, but they went right back home again by 1947. And if you think a ''new economy'' accounts for the spectacular stock market rise, take a look at the market rise from 1865 to 1872, or from 1894 to 1902 - both of which accumulated higher returns than the current expansion. The historical view can be optimistic: The cap on lead-based gasoline, introduced with a market mechanism in 1982, dramatically reduced lead emissions, which are now virtually eliminated. Or not so optimistic: A steady drop in SAT scores since the 1970s finally turned around 10 years ago, but scores remain well below those of 1971-72. It's a welcome change from political interpretation to have a photograph of the past introduce each chapter. The polluted streets of cities that in 1901 were dependent on horse-drawn traffic lead to an informative discussion of environmental pollution today, for example. The sophisticated measures which have replaced quantitative regulations and the impossibly costly notion of ''100 percent pollution free'' turn out to be easy to understand: These incenttive-based instruments rely on market trading and the ingenuity of the private sector to attack the social evils of hazardous wastes. Chapter 5, on technology, reproduces a 1914 advertisement by the Bell system, lauding its installment of 5 million telephones to serve 25 million people, and moves on to how technological change affects the economy, the growth of the information sector and telecommunications in particular, the Internet, and both retail and business-to-business e-commerce. Such factual and analytical pages make up 27 pages of the chapter, with government policies given in five. The same format presents significant changes in American families. Special boxes highlight the diversity of families, ''the importance of fathers,'' and ''women professionals, the rat race, and the time crunch,'' among other things. The report contains analysis, policy recommendations, evaluations of policies applied, hypotheses about future developments, as well as tenative explanations for some current mysteries. By and large, these appear without overt political interpretation, although of course the administration's policies and proposals get full attention, and every council's economic report reflects the stance of the president and his advisers. This report speaks of ''challenges'' rather than problems in our current abundant economy and notes with proper caution that the first and perhaps most important challenge will be to maintain this longest-ever expansion. Significantly, however, the `century-long perspective' is titled Growth and Inequality, and much in the following chapters refers to the various degrees of inequality and their meaning in our celebration of prosperity. The bonus consists of the statistical appendix: hard numbers on wages, workers, saving and investment, family income, housing starts, bond yields, local government finance, corporate profits, agricultural exports and imports, and more. Most of the tables give historical data, beginning usually in the 1950s. The entire book demonstrates what economists know to be true, that information is a valuable resource. This book is one way of making it less scarce. It's available at the government bookstore in the John F. Kennedy Federal Building in Government Center for $25. Carolyn Shaw Bell is the Katharine Coman emerita professor of economics at Wellesley College. She can be reached by e-mail at cbell@lucy.wel lesley.edu. This story ran on page C04 of the Boston Globe on 3/7/2000. © Copyright 2000 Globe Newspaper Company. [ Send this story to a friend | Easy-print version | Add to Daily User ]