+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++(posted 8785 days ago)On the economic policy side, Reagan deserves essentially *no* credit for the reduction in inflation (the work of the Federal Reserve), *some* credit for reducing the inefficiencies caused by the tax system (but Bill Bradley deserves more credit for the 1986 tax reform, and Reagan's 1981 tax law changes reduced some inefficiencies and created others), and *enormous* amounts of blame for the budget deficit.
The effect of the budget deficits? An extra four percent of GDP for a decade removed from the flow of funds for investment reduces the end-of-period level of real GDP by 2.4% if the pretax social rate of return on investment is 10% per year, and by 4.8% if the pretax social return on investments is 20% per year. I think that those numbers roughly bound the damage to economic growth that resulted from the Reagan deficits.
Of course, those who benefitted from the tax cuts in the 1980s had one hell of a party along the way...
Foreign policy I'm not qualified to speak about. I tend to think that changes in countries' modes of governance are largely driven by internal forces--that Reagan's SDI had little to do with perestroika and glasnost. But I couldn't make a sustained, convincing argument to that effect because I know too little.
Brad DeLong