first-best

If this is our first-best outcome (where everybody pays in and everyone is covered), then a second-best approximation (since single-payer is politically unworkable somehow?) should at least incorporates the fundamental feature of universality.

Matthew Yglesias » Obamacare: Now With Mandate 2009

"No, I think Chicago is the first-best wine city," he replied.

Here's to Chicago, That Tipplin' Town Lettie Teague 2011

The theoretical first-best solution is for the state to finance idea-creation and make ideas available to the public for free.

Tyrone Posts on Health Care, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty 2009

"No, I think Chicago is the first-best wine city," he replied.

Here's to Chicago, That Tipplin' Town Lettie Teague 2011

Minimum wage laws are a second-best solution to the problem where the first-best solutions (simple transfers to the poor) aren't politically viable.

Think Before You Sign, Bryan Caplan | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty 2009

He summarizes his plan for turning school budget cuts and more federal bailout funds into an opportunity to improve the teaching ranks: "The first-best solution, based on several decades of consistent research findings, is to lay off ineffective teachers selectively while letting class sizes drift up a bit," he writes.

Improving schools by paying teachers to leave 2010

They deliberately want to avoid the first-best solution and plump for a much riskier second-best, driven entirely by PR considerations?

BP's Photoshopped Command Center Just The Latest In A Pattern Of Deception 2010

The second reason that liberal politicians wimp out on single payer is that the self-styled realists in this debate have decided that Medicare-for-All, even if it's the first-best system, is too hard politically.

Robert Kuttner: The Policy That Dare Not Speak Its Name 2009

Which, as Rodrik might have it, “allows each expert in a field to propose first-best solutions in that field, leaving complications elsewhere to be dealt with by others.”

I Am Firm; You Are Stubborn; He Is Pig-Headed 2007

If real markets are just horribly riddled with huge imperfections, even a suboptimal, clumsy political process has a good shot at making things better, and so at least for the purposes of the decision to intervene, we can adopt the “first-best” Civics 101 model.

I Am Firm; You Are Stubborn; He Is Pig-Headed 2007