Public finance and taxation Books

Book SynopsisThis important collection presents an authoritative selection of papers on public private partnerships. The literature is relatively new, and draws on the disciplines of both economics and engineering. As well as examining the recent experience of these schemes - whose evolution has accelerated in recent years - this insightful collection also considers the intellectual origins of the concept, and investigates the organisational and risk management aspects of PPPs. It will be an essential source of reference for all those with an interest in this topical subject.Trade Review'A seminal body of work, The Economics of Public Private Partnerships is a welcome addition to the growing body of international economic literature and a core addition to professional and academic library Economic Studies reference collections and supplemental reading lists.' -- Midwest Book ReviewTable of ContentsContents: Acknowledgements Introduction Darrin Grimsey and Mervyn K. Lewis PART I THE CHANGING MARKET FOR PUBLIC SERVICES 1. Michael B. Gerrard (2001), ‘Public-Private Partnerships’ 2. Paul Starr (1988), ‘The Meaning of Privatization’ 3. Christopher Hood (1995), ‘The “New Public Management” in the 1980s: Variations on a Theme’ 4. Simon Domberger and Stephen Rimmer (1994), ‘Competitive Tendering and Contracting in the Public Sector: A Survey’ 5. Stephen H. Linder (1999), ‘Coming to Terms With the Public-Private Partnership’ PART II THE PRIVATE FINANCING MODEL 6. G.J. Hodgson (1995), ‘Design and Build – Effects of Contractor Design on Highway Schemes’ 7. Martin Stewart-Smith (1995), ‘Private Financing and Infrastructure Provision in Emerging Markets’ 8. Paulina Beato and Antonio Vives (1996), ‘Private-Sector Participation in Infrastructure: Risk, Fiscal, and Efficiency Issues in Public-Private Arrangements for the Provision of Services’ 9. Eduardo Engel, Ronald Fischer and Alexander Galetovic (1997), ‘Highway Franchising: Pitfalls and Opportunities’ PART III ORGANIZATION OF PPPS 10. A.J. Smith (1999), ‘Philosophical Aspects of the Public/Private Sector Partnership’ 11. David Campbell and Donald Harris (1993), ‘Flexibility in Long-term Contractual Relationships: The Role of Co-operation’ 12. J.J.A.M. Reijniers (1994), ‘Organization of Public-Private Partnership Projects: The Timely Prevention of Pitfalls’ 13. Ronald J. Daniels and Michael J. Trebilcock (1996), ‘Private Provision of Public Infrastructure: An Organizational Analysis of the Next Privatization Frontier’ 14. Nicholas Gould (1998), ‘Dispute Resolution Mechanisms to Address Unforeseen Circumstances in Long Term BOT Contracts’ 15. José A. Trujillo, Remy Cohen, Xavier Freixas and Robert Sheehy (1998), ‘Infrastructure Financing with Unbundled Mechanisms’ 16. A.M. Abdel-Aziz and A.D. Russell (2001), ‘A Structure for Government Requirements in Public-Private Partnerships’ 17. Oliver Hart (2003), ‘Incomplete Contracts and Public Ownership: Remarks, and an Application to Public-Private Partnerships’ 18. David Parker and Keith Hartley (2003), ‘Transaction Costs, Relational Contracting and Public Private Partnerships: A Case Study of UK Defence’ PART IV THE UK EXPERIENCE 19. G. Owen and A. Merna (1997), ‘The Private Finance Initiative’ 20. Paul A. Grout (1997), ‘The Economics of the Private Finance Initiative’ 21. Michael Klein (1997), ‘The Risk Premium for Evaluating Public Projects’ 22. John Hall (1998), ‘Private Opportunity, Public Benefit?’ 23. David J. Mayston (1999), ‘The Private Finance Initiative in the National Health Service: An Unhealthy Development in New Public Management?’ 24. Amira Mustafa (1999), ‘Public–Private Partnership: An Alternative Institutional Model for Implementing the Private Finance Initiative in the Provision of Transport Infrastructure’ 25. Paul A. Grout (2003), ‘Public and Private Sector Discount Rates in Public-Private Partnerships’ PART V EXPERIENCE ELSEWHERE 26. Joseph E. Stiglitz and Scott J. Wallsten (1999), ‘Public–Private Technology Partnerships: Promises and Pitfalls’ 27. Paul G. Apen, Brian C. Benicewicz and Joseph R. Laia (1994), ‘A New Model for Public–Private Partnerships’ 28. Stephen C. Lockwood (1995), ‘Public–Private Partnerships in U.S. Highway Finance: ISTEA and Beyond’ 29. Anne Larason Schneider (1999), ‘Public–Private Partnerships in the U.S. Prison System’ 30. David Haarmeyer and Ashoka Mody (1997), ‘Private Capital in Water and Sanitation’ 31. Anne Ribault (2001), ‘Lessons from the French Experience in Public and Private Partnership’ PART VI RISK MANAGEMENT 32. S.C. Ward, C.B. Chapman and B. Curtis (1991), ‘On the Allocation of Risk in Construction Projects’ 33. Anthony Forshaw (1999), ‘The U.K. Revolution in Public Procurement and the Value of Project Finance’ 34. S. Faruqi and N.J. Smith (1997), ‘Karachi Light Rail Transit: A Private Finance Proposal’ 35. Raphael Henry Arndt (1998), ‘Risk Allocation in the Melbourne City Link Project’ 36. Darrin Grimsey and Mervyn K. Lewis (2002), ‘Evaluating the Risks of Public Private Partnerships for Infrastructure Projects’ Name Index

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Book SynopsisDick Netzer, a leading public finance economist specializing in state and local issues and urban government, brings together in this comprehensive volume essays by top scholars connecting the property tax with land use. They explore the idea that the property tax is used as a partial substitute for land use regulation and other policies designed to affect how land is utilized. Like many economists, the contributors see some type of property taxation as the more efficient means of helping to shape land use. Some of the essays analyze a conventional property tax, while others consider radically different systems of property taxation.The first paper sets the stage, modeling taxes on land and buildings in the context of a dynamic model of real estate markets. The remaining papers examine how various tax mechanisms and non-tax alternatives to regulating and determining land use, such as zoning and private neighborhood associations, complement or substitute for one another. Urban planners and economists interested in local public finance will welcome this comprehensive study.Trade Review'. . . an interesting exploration of land use and taxations. It is well thought out and provides the reader with both the theoretical basis for analysis and some empirical support for the theoretical arguments. . . the book is a wonderful example of a well-written and formatted reader for reference on the shelves of all interested in taxation and land use.' -- Rober J. Eger III, Journal of the American Taxation Association'The book is remarkable for both the breadth and depth of the consideration given to alternative land-use policies. . . The Property Tax, Land Use and Land Use Regulation is filled with economic models, analyses, empirical results, institutional descriptions, and policy conclusions. There is no "fluff" here. While some chapters will be challenging to readers new to land value and land-use modeling, it is worth the effort to work through the analyses and become familiar with these timely and highly relevant studies.' -- Laura Klambokidis, Journal of Regional ScienceTable of ContentsContents: Introduction 1. Taxes on Buildings and Land in a Dynamic Model of Real Estate Markets 2. The Effect of Tax Increment Financing on Land Use 3. Preferential Assessment: Impacts and Alternatives 4. The Influence of Local Fiscal Structure and Growth Control Choices on ‘Big-Box’ Urban Sprawl in the American West 5. Is Zoning a Substitute for, or a Complement to, Factor Taxes? 6. Taxes Versus Regulation: The Welfare Impacts of Policies for Containing Urban Sprawl 7. Land Use Regulations and the Property Tax: Cost–Benefit Analyses 8. The Rise of the Private Neighbourhood Association: A Constitutional Revolution in Local Government 9. The Rise of Private Neighbourhood Associations: Revolution or Evolution? 10. Frontage Tax and the Optimally Compact City Index

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Book SynopsisAn illustrious group of economists contribute to this volume honoring Dick Netzer, the public finance economist well-known for his research on state and local taxation, the provision of urban public services, and non-profit organizations. Following in his tradition, the contributors apply microeconomics to real world problems facing urban areas and use statistical analysis to gain insight into practical solutions. The first four chapters of the book provide in-depth explorations of alternative methods of financing urban government such as: the relative merits of income and property taxation at the local level, the impact of sales and income taxation on property taxation, and the feasibility of adopting a land value tax. The next two chapters focus on government expenditures: the impact of subsidized housing investment on property values, and the theoretical and historical explanations for public ownership and direct provision of public services. The final two chapters of the book turn their attention to the non-profit sector, exploring subsidies to non-profit arts organizations and the role of the non-profit sector in providing K-12 education, specifically addressing the implications for segregation and equity. Comprehensive and engaging, professionals and scholars in the fields of public finance, urban economics and public administration will find this collection of great interest.Trade Review'The seven essays here have much to recommend them. The themes are important, the analysts are well known and well qualified, their analyses are carefully done and insightful, and the writing is concise but usually accessible to non experts. . . Dick Netzer's detailed, practical scholarship has inspired a generation of economists to study local governments and nonprofit artistic institutions in the hope of improving public policy. This book is a fine tribute, sure to stimulate further controversy, unlikely to settle many issues, but useful to policy makers and scholars alike.' -- David Merriman, Journal of Regional ScienceTable of ContentsContents: 1. Introduction 2. What Should Local Governments Tax: Income or Property? 3. What a Tangled Web: Local Property, Income and Sales Taxes 4. Land Taxation in New York City: A General Equilibrium Analysis 5. The Role of Cities in Providing Housing Assistance: A New York Perspective 6. Public Ownership in the American City 7. The Nonprofit Sector in K-12 Education 8. The Partially Subsidized Muse: Estimating the Value and Incidence of Public Support Received by Nonprofit Arts Organizations Index

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Book SynopsisScholarly research on taxation is increasingly preoccupied with its global implications. This volume collects the most important and influential recent research on international aspects of taxation. The book offers empirical estimates of the effects of taxation on foreign direct investment, international borrowing, and other forms of tax avoidance. It further focuses on classic studies of tax competition and the latest research on the characteristics of desirable tax policies in open economies. This authoritative collection of articles offers a comprehensive survey of international tax issues, one that is accessible to newcomers to the field but is also of considerable value to seasoned tax professionals.Trade Review'In the last two decades, increasing integration of the markets for goods, capital, and intellectual property has made the tax rules governing international transactions central features of the modern tax code. In response, the academic literature on international taxation has expanded rapidly. This volume brings together key contributions, classics as well as studies that define the current research frontier, in a collection that no serious student of tax policy should be without.' -- James M. Poterba, MIT, USTable of ContentsContents: Acknowledgements Introduction James R. Hines Jr. PART I FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT 1. David G. Hartman (1985), ‘Tax Policy and Foreign Direct Investment’ 2. James R. Hines, Jr. and Eric M. Rice (1994), ‘Fiscal Paradise: Foreign Tax Havens and American Business’ 3. James R. Hines, Jr. (1996), ‘Altered States: Taxes and the Location of Foreign Direct Investment in America’ 4. Rosanne Altshuler, Harry Grubert and T. Scott Newlon (2001), ‘Has U.S. Investment Abroad Become More Sensitive to Tax Rates?’ 5. James R. Hines Jr. (2001), ‘Tax Sparing and Direct Investment in Developing Countries’ 6. Michael P. Devereux and Rachel Griffith (2003), ‘Evaluating Tax Policy for Location Decisions’ 7. Mihir A. Desai, C. Fritz Foley and James R. Hines Jr. (2004), ‘Foreign Direct Investment in a World of Multiple Taxes’ 8. Alfons J. Weichenrieder (1996), ‘Anti-Tax-Avoidance Provisions and the Size of Foreign Direct Investment’ PART II INTERNATIONAL BORROWING 9. Harry Huizinga (1996), ‘The Incidence of Interest Withholding Taxes: Evidence from the LDC Loan Market’ 10. Leslie E. Papke (2000), ‘One-Way Treaty with the World: The U.S. Withholding Tax and the Netherlands Antilles’ 11. Mihir A. Desai, C. Fritz Foley and James R. Hines Jr. (2004), ‘A Multinational Perspective on Capital Structure Choice and Internal Capital Markets’ PART III TAX AVOIDANCE 12. Kimberly A. Clausing (2003), ‘Tax-Motivated Transfer Pricing and US Intrafirm Trade Prices’ 13. Mihir A. Desai and James R. Hines Jr. (2002), ‘Expectations and Expatriations: Tracing the Causes and Consequences of Corporate Inversions’ 14. Mihir A. Desai, C. Fritz Foley and James R. Hines Jr. (2001), ‘Repatriation Taxes and Dividend Distortions’ 15. Rosanne Altshuler and Harry Grubert (2003), ‘Repatriation Taxes, Repatriation Strategies and Multinational Financial Policy’ PART IV TAX COMPETITION 16. S. Bucovetsky (1991), ‘Asymmetric Tax Competition’ 17. Ravi Kanbur and Michael Keen (1993), ‘Jeux Sans Frontières: Tax Competition and Tax Coordination When Countries Differ in Size’ 18. Roger H. Gordon (1992), ‘Can Capital Income Taxes Survive in Open Economies?’ 19. Michael Keen (2001), ‘Preferential Regimes Can Make Tax Competition Less Harmful’ 20. John Douglas Wilson and David E. Wildasin (2004), ‘Capital Tax Competition: Bane or Boon?’ PART V INTERNATIONAL TAX POLICY IMPLICATIONS 21. Thomas Horst (1980), ‘A Note on the Optimal Taxation of International Investment Income’ 22. Assaf Razin and Efraim Sadka (1991), ‘International Tax Competition and Gains from Tax Harmonization’ 23. Michael Keen and Hannu Piekkola (1997), ‘Simple Rules for the Optimal Taxation of International Capital Income’ 24. Joel Slemrod, Carl Hansen and Roger Proctor (1997), ‘The Seesaw Principle in International Tax Policy’ 25. Mihir A. Desai and James R. Hines Jr. (2003), ‘Evaluating International Tax Reform’ 26. Roger H. Gordon (1986), ‘Taxation of Investment and Savings in a World Economy’ 27. Wolfgang Eggert and Andreas Haufler (1999), ‘Capital Taxation and Production Efficiency in an Open Economy’ 28. Michael Keen and David Wildasin (2004), ‘Pareto-Efficient International Taxation’ Name Index

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Book SynopsisPublic-Private Partnerships (PPPs) - cooperative institutional arrangements between public and private sector actors - are now an increasingly relevant and globally popular public policy option. The authors argue that even though PPPs are still evolving, there is now sufficient research to bring these joint ventures to account and to provide lessons for the future. The aim of the book is to investigate how PPP reforms function in comparison to the more traditional methods of providing public sector services and infrastructure and who typically experiences the successes and failures of these reforms.The Challenge of Public-Private Partnerships advances recent thought on PPPs in the areas of risk transfer, financial implications, contractual matters, politics, management and accountability. International case studies are presented from the United Kingdom, Europe, the US and Australasia, and the authors delineate the experience of PPPs in areas such as infrastructure and human services. A strong thread of accountability is woven throughout the book, synthesizing common issues, separating the rhetoric from the performance reality and providing strategies for better meeting the various international challenges for future PPPs.Re-examining the myriad meanings and definitions given to PPPs, and presenting a range of theories and frameworks to improve understanding of PPP events and outcomes, this book will be of great interest to those involved in public administration and public policy-making.Trade Review'One of the first collections of empirical studies on the international experience with public-private partnerships (PPPs), The Challenge of Public-Private Partnerships raises several crucial issues that challenge the effectiveness of PPPs. It does a good job of organizing scattered research on a complicated topic, examining partnerships in historical, political, and economic contexts, and pointing out major defects in previous studies. The editors have assembled an all-star cast of contributors to accomplish three major goals relating to PPPs: to reexamine the huge range of definitions, to review the international experience and learn from the outcomes, and to call for more careful balanced assessment.' -- Yin Wang, Public Administration Review'. . . this is an excellent volume. The authors raise a number of important questions that extend beyond the particulars of the public-private partnerships that exist now, and address broader questions of the interactions of the two sectors, and the complexity of those interactions.' -- B. Guy Peters, University of Pittsburgh, USTable of ContentsContents: 1. Introduction 2. The Public–Private Interface: Surveying the History 3. The United Kingdom Private Finance Initiative: The Challenge of Allocating Risk 4. Getting the Contract Right 5. Political Issues of Public–Private Partnerships 6. Public–Private Partnerships as the Management of Co-Production: Strategic and Institutional Obstacles in a Difficult Marriage 7. Traditional Contracts as Partnerships: Effective Accountability in Social Services Contracts in the American States 8. United States: Human Services 9. North American Infrastructure P3s: Examples and Lessons Learned 10. The Private Finance Initiative or the Public Funding or Private Profit? 11. Learning from UK Private Finance Initiative Experience 12. Public–Private Partnerships in Social Services: The Example of the City of Stockholm 13. Public–Private Partnerships for Infrastructure in Denmark from Local to Global Partnering 14. German Public–Private Partnerships in Personal Social Services: New Directions in a Corporatist Environment 15. Using Public–Private Partnerships to Deliver Social Infrastructure: The Australian Experience 16. Public–Private Partnerships: The Australasian Experience with Physical Infrastructure 17. Public–Private Partnerships: A Policy for All Seasons? Index

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Book SynopsisTaxes on land and property exist all over the world in many forms and are an important source of finance for local governments. The extent to which local governments have control over property taxes is often an important determinant of their ability to make autonomous expenditure decisions. This comprehensive Handbook explores case studies of land and property taxation in 25 countries (five in each of five regions - OECD, central and eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America), and focuses on the potential contributions of the property tax to the revenues of urban and rural governments and to more efficient land use. Introductory chapters highlight the diversity in the application of land and property taxes among the countries. Major policy alternatives with respect to taxing land and property are discussed, including the choice of tax base, exemptions, methods of determining the tax base, tax rates, differential treatment of different classes of property (such as farms, residences, commercial properties), and the process of tax administration. Other taxes levied on land, such as land transfer taxes, development charges and unearned increment taxes, are also reviewed, as is recent experience with property tax reform in a number of countries.This major reference work will provide a valuable resource and necessary addition to the libraries of government officials, municipal associations, property assessors, international agencies, teachers and students of public finance.Trade Review'. . . fine compilation of essays dealing with international land and property taxation issues. . . . the book is well researched and readable in presenting the tax systems. . . The book would be more than appropriate as additional reading for a master's level class in taxation. It could supplement an international tax class, or be used in a state and local tax class to present contrasts and complexities of the issue in other countries.' -- Malichi van Tassell Tor, The Journal of the American Taxation Association'. . . this is quite an achievement. Thanks to the nature of the case studies and the contributing authors the volume is inherently international in its scope and should appeal to practitioners, teachers, and students interested in land and property taxation, international economic development, and land and real-estate studies.' -- Scott Orford, Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design'I have found the book International Handbook of Land and Property Taxation a very meaningful and enlightening book to read. The editors Bird and Slack have developed a theoretically sound framework, backed by economic conceptions in order to attempt a comprehensive treatment on tax administration on land and property. Specifically and yet more broadly, they have to their credit managed to throw light of sufficient depth on key issues that include the tax base and rate, the tax burden and the tax policy decision makers. The international dimension is just as imperative to consider and the editors have effectively succeeded to render an in-depth treatment in this regard. This imperative is also a unique and important contribution to empirical real estate studies within the tax discipline, and the editors should be highly commended in this effort. I am very encouraged with the academic rigor of this book publication. . .' -- David Ho, Journal of Property Investment and FinanceTable of ContentsContents: 1. Introduction and Overview 2. Land and Property Taxation in 25 Countries: A Comparative Review 3. Reforming Property Taxes Part I: OECD Countries 4. Property Taxation in Canada 5. Property Taxation in the United Kingdom 6. Property Taxation in Australia 7. Land Taxation in Germany 8. Property Tax in Japan Part II: Asia 9. Property Taxation in Indonesia 10. Property Taxation in India 11. Real Property Taxation in the Philippines 12. Property Tax in Thailand 13. Land and Property Taxation in China Part III: Africa 14. Property Rates in Kenya 15. Property Rates in Tanzania 16. Property Taxation in South Africa 17. Land and Property Taxation in Guinea 18. Land and Property Taxation in Tunisia Part IV: Central and Eastern Europe 19. Land-based Taxes in Hungary 20. Land and Property Taxes in Russia 21. Property Tax in Ukraine 22. Land and Property Taxes in Poland 23. Real Estate Tax in Latvia Part V: Latin America 24. Land Taxes in Colombia 25. Taxes on Land and Property in Argentina 26. Property Tax in Chile 27. Property Taxes in Mexico 28. Property Taxes in Nicaragua Index

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Book SynopsisThis book explores the system of financing local governments in selected countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Using evidence from the last two decades, the authors, experts on their particular countries, describe the development of the current local government finance system in each nation, and the major challenges and policy options they face. The contributions in this book provide comprehensive coverage of a transitional Europe that encompasses both modern local public finance theory and specific applications in the target countries.The book is a recommended read not only for students of local government and local public finance, but also practitioners and all those who have to deal with the accountability and financial issues at local government level in Central and Eastern Europe.Trade Review‘Local Public Finance in Central and Eastern Europe is an excellent contribution to the comparative and critical analysis of local public finance in Central and Eastern Europe. An excellent and thorough work by the editor is reflected in this publication which gives experts and students new information and perspectives on different issues. A unique publication of this type, the book summarizes essential features of local public finance in selected countries.' -- Leos VItek, Central European Journal of Public PolicyTable of ContentsContents: Preface 1. Local Government Finance in Central and Eastern Europe: Whither Way? Željko Šević 2. Albania: Decentralisation and Local Government Finance – Key Successes and Future Challenges Juliana H. Pigey, Artan Hoxha and Sabina Ymeri 3. Local Government Finance in Belarus Yuri Krivorotko 4. Local Government Finance in Bosnia and Herzegovina Jean Tesche 5. Strengthening Local Government Finance: The Case of Bulgaria Svetlana Alexandrova 6. Local Government Finance in Croatia Anto Bajo and Ivana Jakir-Bajo 7. Fiscal Decentralisation in the Czech Republic: Problems and Prospects Phillip J. Bryson and Gary C. Cornia 8. Local Government Finance in Estonia Kenneth A. Kriz 9. Decentralisation Under Fiscal Pressure: Local Government Finances in Hungary Gábor Péteri 10. Local Government Finance in Latvia Mudite Priede and Solvita Klapare 11. Local Government Finance in Lithuania Gerda Žigiene, Jadvyga Ciburiene and Mark W. Chandler 12. Financing Local Self-Government in the Republic of Macedonia Borce Davitkovski and Ana Pavlovska-Daneva 13. Local Government Finance in Moldova Clare T. Romanik, Eugeniu Hristev and Maria Salabuga 14. Local Government Finance in Montenegro Djordjije Blazic 15. Local Government Finance in Poland Piotr Bury and Pawel Swianiewicz 16. Local Government Finance in Romania Claudiu Doltu 17. Local Government Finance in Serbia Thomas Meekel 18. Local Government Finance in Slovakia Juraj Nemec 19. Financing Local Communities in Slovenia Davor Savin 20. Funding Local Government in Ukraine Sergii Slukhai Index

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Book SynopsisEnvironmental taxes differ from each other according to the functions they serve and the manner in which they are implemented. This study highlights the appropriateness of different kinds of environmental taxes against a rigorous framework of theory and case study evidence.The purpose of this book is to analyse the way in which environmental taxes are categorized and which factors affect the effectiveness and efficiency of the different kinds of environmental taxes in practice. This pragmatic approach is emphasized along with the multiplicity of regulatory problems such as: At what level should the environmental tax rate be set? What is the proper time schedule for introducing an environmental tax? What are the most appropriate taxable characteristics and how should they be determined? What activities should be exempt from environmental taxation? How can tax relief be implemented? These are only some of the regulatory problems explored in this study, which also encompasses an examination of the theory of regulation.The author argues that economists have often paid too little attention to the administrative and legal issues concerning the implementation of legislation, such as environmental tax laws, which are of course vital to the success of any potential policy. Lawyers too have in turn neglected the theory of regulation, which would assist in analysing problems in a future-oriented way.Environmental Taxes will therefore be of great interest to a wide audience of environmental economists, law and economics scholars as well as policymakers.Trade Review'As the intricacies of the intelligent design of environmental taxes have baffled many, including people in power, this book is a welcome addition to the literature. It is clear, concise and correct. . . Kalle Maatta's Environmental Taxes should have a prominent place on the bookshelves of anyone who advises or practises environmental regulation, and it should often be taken from that shelf.' -- Richard S.J. Tol, Review of European Community & International Environmental LawTable of ContentsContents: Preface 1. Introduction 2. Conceptual Framework 3. The Fallacy of Buchanan–Tullock Theorem 4. Regulatory and Fiscal Taxes: Theoretical Considerations 5. Incentive Environmental Taxes 6. Financing Environmental Taxes 7. Environmental Taxes from the Fiscal Point of View 8. Concluding Remarks Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThis innovative book proposes a new institutional arrangement for government to fulfil the needs of its citizens as well as possible. Existing aspects of federalism and direct democracy in Europe are strengthened, and as a result future developments arising in the region are coped with better.In this book Bruno Frey and Reiner Eichenberger propose a new model of federalism which includes new types of governmental units established by citizens from below. These units are called functional, overlapping and competing jurisdictions as they extend over task-specific areas and therefore overlap. They also provide competitive governance via direct and representative democratic institutions, and as jurisdictions they have independent power over taxation policy. This new model is more responsive to citizens' preferences and adjusts more dynamically to provide public services efficiently. The authors suggest that this new system should be allowed to develop in Europe to safeguard diversity and ensure that decentralization emerges effectively. It would also allow for the flexible integration of East European transition economies into the European Union and may also combine with traditional modes of government in developing countries.This book will be warmly welcomed by economists, political scientists and sociologists interested in the future of the European Union, by all those studying federal systems of government, and by those interested in the prospects for improving democratic institutions throughout the world.Trade Review'. . . this is a stimulating pioneer work. They should extend it and the rest of us should act as missionaries.' -- Gordon Tullock, Public Choice'. . . the authors not only provide an implicit discussion of the problems of the nation-state, but they also outline an alternative, with a defence of why and how it would work effectively. . . the book provokes thought and debate. It is a welcome creative addition to an already rich literature.' -- Journal of International Law and PoliticsTable of ContentsContents: Part I: The Idea 1. Functional, Overlapping and Competing Jurisdictions (FOCJ) 2. The Advantages of FOCJ 3. FOCJ Implemented 4. FOCJ Compared 5. Bastard FOCJ Part II: FOCJ for Europe 6. Federalism in Today’s Europe 7. FOCJ in Europe Part III: Beyond Europe 8. Europe and the World 9. FOCJ and Developing Countries 10. Conclusions

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Book SynopsisPension Systems enters into the current lively debate on European pensions. The focus of the book is the analysis of public intervention in individuals' retirement choice, its rationale and the desirability of legislation introducing a sizeable and compulsory increase in retirement age, to face the prospects of swift population ageing. The book assesses the impact of different retirement rules on individual decisions, on the sustainability of social security systems and on labour market dynamics, and inquires whether mandatory retirement has not become an outdated feature of modern pension systems. The motivations behind public intervention in fixing compulsory retirement rules as well as the likely consequences of allowing the individual a higher responsibility in retirement choices are analysed. These issues are examined both theoretically and empirically and through a focus on country-specific patterns of retirement and on policy issues relevant at the European level. The impact of later retirement on the labour market is also investigated, considering the role of retirement rules in increasing employment. This comprehensive and topical book will appeal to academics and scholars of public finance as well as pensions experts and organisations.Trade Review'I recommend this book to all who are interested in European pension systems and ageing-of-the-population problems. The presentation is in a rather accessible non-technical style, so policy and opinion makers should also take notice.' -- Sybille Grob, De EconomistTable of ContentsContents: 1. Introduction Part I: Increasing Retirement Age: Principles and Practice 2. Social Security Rules that Vary with Age 3. Retirement Incentives and Retirement 4. A Discussion Part II: Country Experiences 5. Patterns of Retirement in Germany: How They Emerged, and How to Change Them 6. Assessing the Impact of Pensions Policy Reform in Ireland: The Case of Increasing the Pension Age 7. Retirement Age Rules and Pension Reforms in Italy 8. Retirement Choices of Older Workers in Italy 9. Income Expectations and Outcomes at Mandatory Retirement in the Netherlands Index

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Book SynopsisAttiat Ott and Richard Cebula have recognised the need to present, in an accessible and straightforward way, the voluminous literature in the public economics arena. Advances in econometric techniques and the spillover of knowledge from other disciplines made it difficult, not only for students but also for lecturers, to accurately find the information they need.This major Companion addresses a wealth of topics common to the study of both public economics and public choice including questions such as: How does one structure the whole spectrum of public finance in a manageable framework? What is Wagner's Law really about and what does empirical testing tell us? How binding is the budget constraint? How encompassing is a dictator's interest? How do veto powers of the executive, institutional structures and regimes affect public sector outcomes? Do voters behave rationally? Do conflicts yield benefits? Is war cost effective and does secession offer a viable exit option? The contributions, both theoretical and empirical, shed light on some contentious issues in the public economics literature and provide readers with insight into issues that are at the forefront of discussions about the public economy. The empirical analysis utilizes recent econometric techniques to validate or refute empirical findings based on older 'vintage' econometrics. The diversity of coverage ranges from traditional models of the public economy to the incorporation of defence spending as a significant and often neglected function of the public sector. The contributors include many pioneers and leading lights in the field.The Elgar Companion to Public Economics will be required reading for academics and scholars at many levels in the fields of public economics and public choice but mainly graduate and above. The Companion will also be of value to scholars in the wider social sciences in general and political science in particular.Table of ContentsContents: Preface Introduction and Background Attiat F. Ott and Richard J. Cebula Part I: The Public Economy 1. Public Finance and the Three Branch Model Richard A. Musgrave 2. The Empirics of the Three Branch Model Attiat F. Ott 3. Wagner’s Law of Increasing Expansion of Public Activities Alan Peacock 4. Wagner’s Hypothesis: New Evidence from the US Using the Bounds Testing Approach James E. Payne, Bradley T. Ewing and Hassan Mohammadi 5. Soft Budget Constraint and Hard Budget Constraint: Who is Bailing Out Whom and Why? Attiat F. Ott and Nirupama Devaraj 6. Public Good Provision by Dictatorship: A Survey Robert T. Deacon and Sarani Saha 7. Empirical Evidence on the Optimality and Productivity of Government Services in Sub-Saharan Africa Rita Babihuga Part II: Public Sector Provision 8. The Supply Side of Democratic Government: A Brief Survey Thomas Borcherding and Dong (Dan) Lee 9. Strategic Interaction Among Local Governments: A Spatial Analysis of Spillover of Public Goods Soma Ghosh 10. Economics of Conflict Keith Hartley 11. Defense Expenditure and Economic Growth: Evidence from Cross-Country Panel Data Rati Ram 12. The Demand for Military Spending in Middle Eastern Countries and Turkey Julide Yildirim, Selami Sezgin and Nadir Öcal Part III: Re-Shaping Public Sector Outcomes in a Democracy 13. Fiscal Policy and Direct Democracy: Institutional Design Determines Outcomes Lars P. Feld and Gebhard Kirchgässner 14. Direct Democracy and Tiebout Exit Nirupama Devaraj 15. An Extension of the Rational Voter Model Richard J. Cebula and Gordon Tullock 16. A Preliminary Analysis of the Presidential Approval Rating Richard J. Cebula 17. Line Item Veto: Lessons from the Literature David Schap 18. An Analysis of the UN Security Council Veto Nevila Kote Part IV: Models of Public Sector Behavior 19. The Political Theories of Deficits and Debt Accumulation Vladislav Dolgopolov, Bonnie Orcutt and Attiat F. Ott 20. The Efficiency of Representative Democracy: A Comparative Study of Two Competing Models Trufat Woldesenbet 21. What Kept the Russian Federation Intact? Testing the Internal Exit Model of Buchanan and Faith Vjacheslav Dombrovsky 22. Secession and Exit: An Analysis of Two Competing Hypotheses Constantine Alexandrakis and Robert T. Jones References Index

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Book SynopsisThis major Handbook addresses fiscal relations between different levels of government under the general rubric of 'fiscal federalism', providing a review of the latest literature as well as an invaluable guide for practitioners and policy makers seeking informed policy options. The contributors include leading lights in the field, many of whom have themselves made seminal contributions to the literature.Comprehensive and wide in coverage, the issues covered range from federal systems to other forms of intergovernmental relations, such as supra-national constructs - namely, the European Union - unitary states, regional systems, and more decentralized operations, including community level organizations. The political economy approach emphasizes the importance of institutional arrangements, including the legal, political and administrative aspects, and information flows to ensure that there are appropriate incentives and sanctions to generate good governance. This Handbook also devotes attention to emerging issues, such as environmental protection, the sharing of natural resources among levels of government, corruption and the impact of federalism and decentralization on national unity. It will be a vital reference tool for the area for many years to come.Trade Review'This volume provides comprehensive coverage of fiscal federalism by some of the leading scholars in the field. . . This Handbook is an excellent addition to the present discourse on the role of the state in fiscal matters. This reviewer would recommend this book as a required text for a graduate or senior class on public finance or economic development. Researchers in economic development, public finance, and fiscal policy likewise would find this volume useful. Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduate through professional collections.' -- J. Raman, ChoiceTable of ContentsContents: Foreword Introduction: Fiscal Federalism – A Review of Developments in the Literature and Policy Ehtisham Ahmad and Giorgio Brosio PART I: APPROACHES TO FISCAL FEDERALISM 1. The Political Economy of Decentralization Ben Lockwood 2. Horizontal Competition Among Governments Pierre Salmon 3. Modelling Vertical Competition Albert Breton 4. Spatial Interactions Among Governments Frederico Revelli 5. Asymmetric Federalism and the Political Economy of Decentralization Roger D. Congleton 6. Functional, Overlapping and Competing Jurisdictions (FOCJ): A Complement and Alternative to Today’s Federalism Reiner Eichenberger and Bruno S. Frey 7. Contract Federalism Paul Bernd Spahn PART II: DECENTRALIZATION AND DEVELOPMENT 8. Decentralization and Development Pranab Bardhan 9. Fiscal Federalism in Planned Economies Govinda Rao 10. Decentralization and Service Delivery Junaid Ahmad, Shantayanan Devarajan, Stuti Khemani and Shekhar Shah PART III: IMPLEMENTING MULTILEVEL FISCAL SYSTEMS 11. The Assignment of Functions to Decentralized Government: From Theory to Practice Bernard Dafflon 12. Normative Versus Positive Theories of Revenue Assignments in Federations Maria Flavia Ambrosiano and Massimo Bordignon 13. Tax Competition in a Federal Setting John D. Wilson 14. Intergovernmental Redistributive Transfers: Efficiency and Equity Robin Boadway 15. On the Implementation of Transfers to Subnational Governments Ehtisham Ahmad and Bob Searle 16. Subnational Public Financial Management: Institutions and Macroeconomic Considerations Ehtisham Ahmad, Maria Albino-War and Raju Singh PART IV: EMERGING ISSUES 17. The Assignment of Revenue from Natural Resources Giorgio Brosio 18. Decentralization and the Environment Silvana Dalmazzone 19. Corruption and Decentralized Public Governance Anwar Shah 20. Fiscal Federalism and National Unity Richard M. Bird and Robert D. Ebel 21. Institutions of Federalism and Decentralized Government Brian Galligan Index

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Book SynopsisWhilst the prevailing orthodoxy of the expenditure retrenchment literatureis that globalisation and neo-liberal ideas are leading to a downsizing of the state, empirical research - basing its conclusions on patterns of welfare state spending - does not support such a view. This book brings a new perspective to bear by looking at what has been happening to other areas of the state's activity.Edited by Francis G. Castles, a leading authority in the field, and bringing together an outstanding group of British, German and American scholars, it examines trends in non-social or 'core' spending on public administration, defence, public order, education, economic affairs and debt financing and in the regulatory ordering of the economic sphere. The book not only opens up new areas of comparative public policy research, >but also demonstrates clearly that there have been real reductions in the reach of state in some areas, although patterns of causation are more complex and varied than generally presumed by the retrenchment literature.The research findings reported in The Disappearing State? provide pivotal, relevant and challenging core material for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate courses in public and social policy, political economy and the sociology of the modern state.Trade Review'Most comparative research on public expenditure retrenchment has concentrated on the welfare state. This exciting and innovative volume takes a new approach. It focuses instead on non-social programmes such as education, defence and economic affairs, demonstrates that this is where the real cost-cutting has taken place and shows, paradoxically, that these cuts have made social spending more politically salient in the public expenditure calculus. This is a book which extends the reach of our understanding of modern public policy at the same time as it extends our knowledge of the reach of the modern state.' -- Stephan Leibfried, University of Bremen, Germany'In this volume, Frank Castles and his team of experts continue the myth-busting process begun in Castles's 2004 analysis of welfare state crisis. Their combination of statistical sophistication and theoretical reflection on the political economy of public expenditure slices straight through the myriad misplaced assumptions regarding the decline of the state, globalization, "races to the bottom" and welfare retrenchment. This book makes compulsory reading for all social scientists.' -- Martin Rhodes, University of Denver, US'I like simple sentences, cross-country collaborations, great graphs, and compelling conclusions. Here, remarkably, we have a book with all four. This is vibrant writing on a topic - the long reach of state spending - that figures in everyone's lives. It is hard to know whether the book will be more gripping for the Prime Minister or for high-brow professors of economics and political science.' -- Andrew Oswald, University of Warwick, UKTable of ContentsContents: Preface 1. Introduction Francis G. Castles 2. Testing the Retrenchment Hypothesis: An Aggregate Overview Francis G. Castles 3. Data on the Functions of Government: Where Are We Now? Neil Fraser and Paul Norris 4. The Changing Cost of Government: Trends in the State Overhead Budget Richard Parry 5. Sinking Budgets and Ballooning Prices: Recent Developments Connected to Military Spending Thomas R. Cusack 6. Expenditure on Public Order and Safety Paul Norris 7. Testing the Retrenchment Hypothesis: Educational Spending, 1960–2002 Manfred G. Schmidt 8. The Real Race to the Bottom: What Happened to Economic Affairs Expenditure After 1980? Herbert Obinger and Reimut Zohlnhöfer 9. A Mortgage on the Future? Public Debt Expenditure and Its Determinants, 1980–2001 Uwe Wagschal 10. Moving Beyond Expenditure Accounts: The Changing Contours of the Regulatory State, 1980–2003 Nico A. Siegel Index

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Book SynopsisThe central purpose of this book is to analyse the optimal allocation of local public goods or services (for example garbage collection, police, fire brigades and medical services) in large urban agglomerations and the allocation consequences of increasing competition in the provision of them. Competition in the Provision of Local Public Goods uses two innovative aspects present in the concept of Functional Overlapping Competing Jurisdictions, which are de-localized membership and uni-functionality of jurisdictions. The book analyses the effect of these two aspects on competition among jurisdictions and the impact this probable increase in competition may have on the achievement of the optimal allocation of local public goods.The primary audience for this work is academics and researchers in the fields of urban and regional economics, location theory and public policy. An important secondary audience will be scholars of industrial organization, who can use the framework developed here for analyzing other problems related with the location of individuals in space.Trade Review'. . . fascinating and thought provoking.' -- Jan-Erik Lane, Public Management ReviewTable of ContentsContents: Introduction 1. Maximum Lot-Size Regulation 2. Competing Jurisdictions for the Provision of Local Public Goods 3. Cooperation Between Competing Jurisdictions General Conclusion Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisWhich programmes of income redistribution across jurisdictions are likely to be chosen in democratic countries and why? How does the degree of government centralization affect these choices? How does redistribution of income across regions interact with the migration of factors of production? Do these processes reinforce or do they obstruct each other, and why? This book tries to answer these questions and others related to the issue of income redistribution across states and regions.The book adopts a positive, public choice approach in the theoretical analysis and tests the predictions on evidence drawn from a highly centralized country (Italy) and a highly decentralized one (the United States). The Politics and Economics of Regional Transfers will be of great interest to scholars of economics, public finance and public choice. Students of economics, economic development, political economy, regional and local economics, public finance and public choice will also find it of interest, as will policy analysts.Trade Review'One of the several interesting and useful ideas in Padovano's stimulating analysis of interregional redistribution and convergence is his "Index of Geographical Redistribution". The IGR index can be computed with readily available data using simple regressions. This idea is likely to lead to a host of new empirical studies aimed at uncovering the implications of regional redistribution for internal migration and regional growth.' -- Stanley Winer, Carleton University, CanadaTable of ContentsContents: Foreword by Wallace E. Oates 1. Introduction 2. The Main Ideas, in Words 3. How Interregional Redistribution is Decided and What Effects it Produces: A Static Model 4. A Model of Interregional Redistribution and Income Convergence 5. Empirical Estimates of the Effects of Interregional Redistribution on Income Dynamics 6. Conclusion Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThis book demonstrates how the reliable measurement of growth in tax revenues, both for a tax system and for its component taxes, is important for the design of tax policy. The need for discretionary changes in tax parameters (such as tax rates, income thresholds and allowances) is conditional on the expected automatic revenue growth generated by the tax system. The properties that generate these automatic revenue changes are referred to as the built-in flexibility, or revenue responsiveness, of the tax. This concept is the central focus of the analyses in this book, which provides an invaluable review and synthesis of analytical results and demonstrates how this concept can be applied in practice to yield estimates of revenue responsiveness in various countries. John Creedy and Norman Gemmell highlight how an understanding of the principal determinants of a tax system's responsiveness, and a knowledge of the relevant magnitudes, are important for the design and reform of tax policy where both revenue and redistributional considerations are typically central to the policy agenda.Providing extensions of analysis to cover indirect taxes, and direct and indirect taxes combined, as well as empirical applications for several countries, Modelling Tax Revenue Growth will be warmly welcomed by researchers and graduate students interested in public finance and government officials and those in international organisations interested in tax revenue growth.Table of ContentsContents: Part I: Introduction 1. Introduction Part II: Concepts 2. Income Tax Revenue Elasticities 3. Consumption Tax Revenue Elasticities 4. Tax Revenue and Labour Supply Part III: Applications 5. Income and Consumption Taxes in the UK 6. Consumption Taxes in Australia 7. Tax Revenue in New Zealand Part IV: Conclusions 8. Conclusions Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThe question of why citizens pay their taxes has attracted increased attention in the tax compliance literature of late. In this book, Benno Torgler considers the evidence that suggests that enforcement efforts cannot fully explain the high degree of tax compliance within society. To attempt to resolve this puzzle, numerous researchers have argued that citizens' attitudes towards paying taxes (defined as tax morale) help to explain the high degree of compliance. Yet most have treated tax morale itself as a black box, failing to discuss the issues influencing it. This unique volume provides important new insights into the factors that shape the emergence and maintenance of citizens' willingness to cooperate with tax legislations in different societies.Distinctive in its examination of citizen tax morale and tax compliance, this book will be of great interest to academics, researchers and students concerned with economics, political science, sociology, social psychology and accounting. It will also appeal to policymakers and practitioners.Trade Review'The book will be of considerable assistance to students and other researchers working in the area of compliance behaviour, or more generally, in the area of designing empirical studies.' -- Margaret McKerchar, The British Accounting Review'Torgler's book is a valuable contribution to the tax field, especially as it pioneers research into tax morale that is in its infancy and helps redress the US domination of the tax-compliance literature. It places econometric analysis where it rightly belongs - as the supporting act, not the main feature! - and takes a holistic approach in attempting to explain the complex area of human behaviour that tax compliance involves, whatever the country.' -- Jeff Pope, Agenda'Benno Torgler has written an exciting and important book. His careful and imaginative use of survey and experimental data explores important behavioral and institutional dimensions of tax policy and administration that have been too long neglected. The book provides a thorough exposition of what we now know about these issues as well as a rich menu of suggestions about how to do empirical research on the relation between citizens and states and how to build social capital through rethinking how states tax their citizens.' -- Richard M. Bird, University of Toronto, CanadaTable of ContentsContents: Preface Part I: Background and Research Overviews 1. Introduction 2. What do we Know About Tax Morale and Tax Compliance? 3. Speaking to Theorists and Searching for Facts: Tax Morale and Tax Compliance in Experiments Part II: What Shapes Tax Morale? 4. The Importance of Faith: Tax Morale and Religiosity 5. Tax Morale and Institutions 6. Tax Morale in Latin America 7. Does Culture Matter? A Comparison of Tax Morale in the Former East and West Germany Part III: Tax Policy Strategies 8. Moral Suasion: An Alternative Tax Policy Strategy? Evidence from a Controlled Field Experiment in Switzerland 9. Tax Amnesties and Political Participation Index

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Book SynopsisThis book provides a detailed introduction to behavioural tax microsimulation methods and reviews the use of such models for evaluating tax policy reforms.The steps required to construct a microsimulation model are described in detail and methods of evaluating policy changes are then presented. Labour Supply and Microsimulation deals with a number of issues related to interpreting results from microsimulation, such as welfare measurement, income distribution, confidence intervals around the simulated results and feedback effects on the wage distribution via labour demand. All of the approaches and proposed methods are general and not model-specific. The book includes detailed descriptions of how labour supply models can be used in building behavioural microsimulation models as well as the development of new methods for evaluating policy reforms; for example, dealing with income distribution in discrete hours models, measuring welfare changes and constructing confidence intervals.John Creedy and Guyonne Kalb's book will appeal to graduate students and academic researchers in the fields of labour economics and public finance. Economists in government departments who wish to use the output from microsimulation models in tax policy analysis and design will also find much to engage them within the book.Table of ContentsContents: Part I: Introduction 1. Introduction Part II: Microsimulation Issues 2. Continuous Hours Labour Supply 3. Discrete Hours Labour Supply 4. Estimation of Discrete Hours Models 5. Simulation with Discrete Hours 6. Reweighting of Sample Surveys Part III: Evaluation of Policy Changes 7. Welfare Changes and Tax Burdens 8. Welfare Measures and Labour Supply 9. Distributional Analyses in Discrete Models 10. Choice of the Unit of Analysis in Distributional Measures 11. Confidence Intervals of Simulation Results 12. Simulating Feedback Effects on Wages A. Newton’s Method B. Labour Supply Calibration and Simulation C. The Melbourne Institute Tax and Transfer Simulator D. Welfare Changes E. Labour Supply Derived from the Quadratic Utility F. Inequality and Poverty Measures G. Random Draws from a Multivariate Normal Distribution Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisTax policy questions may relate to specific problems, concerning perhaps the revenue implications of a particular tax, or they may involve an extensive analysis of the cost and redistributive effects of many taxes and transfer payments. This book is concerned with the ways in which tax policy design can be enhanced by the use of a behavioural tax microsimulation model capable of evaluating the effects of planned or actual tax reforms. An advantage of such a large-scale tax simulation model, which reflects the heterogeneity of the population and captures the details of the tax structure, is that it can examine detailed practical policy questions and can provide direct inputs into policy debates. After introducing behavioural models, the authors discuss the role of means testing, several hypothetical policy reforms, actual and proposed reforms and recent modelling developments.Tax Policy Design and Behavioural Microsimulation Modelling will be of interest to academics and researchers of economics, econometrics and public finance. It will also be useful reading for policymakers responsible for the formulation of taxation.Table of ContentsContents: Part I: Introduction 1. Microsimulation Modelling 2. Outline of the Book 3. Flattening the Rate Structure Part II: Hypothetical Policy Reforms 4. Reducing Taper Rates 5. Reducing Family Payment Taper Rate 6. Distributional Change and the Safety Net 7. Survey Reweighting for Population Ageing Part III: Actual and Proposed Reforms 8. The Australian New Tax System 9. Inflation and Bracket Creep 10. The 2004 Federal Budget 11. The Australian Labor Party's Tax and Family Benefits Package 12. Policy Reforms in New Zealand Part IV: Further Developments 13. Modelling Extensions References Index

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Book SynopsisThis book develops a number of analytical models and presents empirical analyses of the equity and efficiency effects of existing indirect taxes from New Zealand. Potential tax reforms including environmental taxes are also examined and the methods presented can easily be adapted to deal with other countries.Policy debates are inevitably influenced by value judgements, which are seldom made explicit either by governments or those engaging in public discussion. By concentrating on the empirical orders of magnitude, and by examining the implications of adopting alternative value judgements, the findings of this book contribute towards rational policy debate, rather than relying on guesswork and rhetoric. The equity and efficiency effects of indirect taxes are examined in detail, using the central concepts of welfare changes, the excess burden of taxation, and money metric utility measures. The indirect taxes examined include a carbon tax designed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.The Distributional Effects of Indirect Taxes develops widely applicable models and will therefore appeal to economists interested in public economics, tax policy, inequality measurement, welfare economics and tax modelling. Economists in government departments and international agencies interested in public finance and inequality and poverty measurement will also find much to engage them in this book, as will policymakers concerned with indirect and environmental tax policy, inequality, and welfare economics.Trade Review'. . . this will be a useful addition to the existing literature on how to measure indirect taxes' impacts on households at different ends of the income and expenditure spectrums.' -- John Christensen, Tax Justice Focus'This book is impressive in the care taken to take account of as many factors as possible and in the detail offered to the reader. Conclusions are carefully drawn. . .' -- Citizen's Income NewsletterTable of ContentsContents: Part I: Introduction 1. Introduction 2. New Zealand Taxes and Data Part II: Excise Taxes and Welfare 3. Excise Taxation, Equity and Efficiency 4. A Petrol Tax Increase Part III: Environmental Taxes 5. Effects of a Carbon Tax 6. Minimum Disruption Changes Part IV: Tax Revenue 7. The Revenue Elasticity of NZ Taxes Part V: Some Measurement Issues 8. Indirect Taxation and Progressivity 9. The Income Unit and Income Concept Part VI: Conclusions 10. Conclusions A. Income and Consumption Taxes B. Welfare Changes and Tax Burdens C. The Simulation Model D. Revenue Elasticity Computations E. Progressivity and the LES F. The Almost Ideal Demand System G. Carbon Tax Tables Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThis book provides an insightful and in-depth analysis of the fiscal reform process experienced in Spain over the last 30 years.The authors initially focus on the political economy of tax reform in Spain, and the fact that political and economic bodies were able to form alliances at key junctures during the process in order to push reforms forward. A comprehensive analysis of the main instruments of the Spanish tax system, including the introduction of VAT upon Spain's accession to the European Common Market, is presented. The rapid fiscal decentralisation process that led Spain from being one of the most centralised countries in the world to being one of the least centralised is also discussed, as is the modernisation of the Spanish tax administration system.Written by a select group of scholars with deep knowledge of the Spanish fiscal system, this book will be of great interest to students, tax policymakers and researchers all over the world and especially in Latin America.Table of ContentsContents: 1. Introduction Jorge Martinez-Vazquez and José Félix Sanz-Sanz 2. Reaching a Political Consensus: The Moncloa Pacts, Joining the European Union, and the Rest of the Journey Francisco Comín 3. The Business Community, Policy-makers, and Tax Reform (1977–2004) Emilio Albi 4. Tax Reform in Perspective: The Role of the Public Sector in Spain along the Process of European Integration José Manuel González-Páramo and Pablo Hernández de Cos 5. Personal Income Taxation: The Cornerstone of the Tax System in a Democracy Desiderio Romero Jordán and José Félix Sanz-Sanz 6. The Evolving Role of the Corporate Income Tax Raquel Paredes Gómez 7. Personal Wealth Taxes: The Inheritance and Gift Taxes and the Net Wealth Tax Laura de Pablos Escobar 8. The Reform of Indirect Taxation: VAT and Excies José Sánchez Maldonado and J. Salvador Gómez Sala 9. Social Protection and Social Security Contributions in Spain Ignacio Zubiri 10. Environmental Taxes in Spain: A Missed Opportunity Alberto Gago, Xavier Labandeira, Fidel Picos and Miguel Rodríguez 11. Regional Governments: Vertical Imbalances and Revenue Assignments Julio López Laborda and Carlos Monasterio Escudero 12. Financing Local Governments: The Spanish Experience Francisco Pedraja-Chaparro, Javier Salinas-Jiménez and Javier Suárez-Pandiello 13. The Reform of the Tax Administration in Spain Jorge Onrubia 14. The Spanish Tax Reform: Overview and Lessons Jorge Martinez-Vazquez Index

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Book SynopsisThis book provides an authoritative contribution to applied cost-benefit analysis (CBA) and other evaluation methods in the context of the regional policy of the European Union. Through the use of Structural Funds and other financial and regulatory mechanisms, the EU will help to promote thousands of infrastructure projects in the next decade. CBA will be a key ingredient in the investment decision process and the authors provide important insights from their international experiences in project appraisal and evaluation and point to some valuable lessons to be learnt for the future. Some key questions addressed by the expert contributors include: How should a planner design incentives to stimulate evaluation efforts in project appraisal? What can we learn from the evaluation experience at the European Commission, the European Investment Bank, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the World Bank? What is the appropriate shadow price of time for Trans-European networks in transport? Is there a consensus on the value of the statistical life in environment projects? Should we use one unique European social discount rate or several? Edited by Massimo Florio, a leading expert in CBA and author of the EC, Guide to Cost-Benefit Analysis of Investment Projects (2002), this book will be warmly welcomed by practitioners in investment planning and evaluation, students in public economics, planning, development and European studies, and academics and researchers of CBA and applied welfare economics.Table of ContentsContents: Preface 1. Introduction: Multi-government Cost–Benefit Analysis, Shadow Prices and Incentives Massimo Florio PART I: LEARNING FROM INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE 2. Cost–Benefit Analysis and EU Cohesion Policy Andrea Mairate and Francesco Angelini 3. Assessing Projects and Programmes for Cohesion Policy at the EIB Gianni Carbonaro 4. Assessing the Contribution of Investment Projects to Building a Market Economy: Beyond Cost–Benefit Analysis? José Carbajo 5. Is Development Evaluation Relevant to the European Project? Robert Picciotto PART II: PROJECT EVALUATION IN TRANSPORT AND ENVIRONMENT 6. Economic Evaluation and Incentives in Transport Infrastructure Investment Ginés De Rus 7. Cost–Benefit Analysis of Transport Projects in France Emile Quinet 8. Environmental Valuation: A Brief Overview of Options Giles Atkinson and Susana Mourato 9. On the Definition and Estimation of the Value of a ‘Statistical Life’ Per-Olov Johansson 10. Economic Evaluation in Environmental Policymaking and Implications for Children Pascale Scapecchi PART III: KEY PARAMETERS FOR APPLIED COST–BENEFIT ANALYSIS 11. Social Discount Rates for the European Union: An Overview Michael Spackman 12. Social Discount Rates for the European Union: New Estimates David Evans 13. Regional Welfare Weights Erhun Kula 14. Derivation of Regional Welfare Weights: An Application to Turkey Haluk Sezer Index

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Book SynopsisThis book advances a social-theoretic treatment of public finance, which contrasts with the typical treatment of government as an agent of intervention into a market economy. To start, Richard Wagner construes government not as an agent but as a polycentric process of interaction, just as is a market economy. The theory of markets and the theory of public finance are thus construed as complementary components of a broader endeavor of social theorizing, with both seeking to provide insight into the emergence of generally coordinated relationships within society. The author places analytical focus on emergent processes of development rather than on states of equilibrium, and with much of that development set in motion by conflict among people and their plans. Some of the book's defining characteristics include: Budgets emerge through organizationally constituted political entrepreneurship Government is construed as a process of interaction and participation and not as a unitary entity of intervention Government and markets are incorporated into a unified theory of property which is traced to human nature and its requirements for both autonomy and solidarity. Richard Wagner's book will be of interest to researchers in public finance, public choice, Austrian economics, political science and public policy.Trade Review'Wagner brings remarkable scholarship to bear on elucidating the emergent approach and connecting it to the vast and varied public finance literature.' -- Brian Pitt, Review of Austrian Economics'Richard Wagner's process-oriented analysis of the public sector offers an insightful alternative to standard public finance theory and a powerful critique of neoclassical welfare economics. His ideas will prove valuable to any scholar interested in understanding the economic activities of government.' -- Randall G. Holcombe, Florida State University, US'Written by one of the premier scholars of fiscal process in the world, this book takes an approach that mixes common sense and a radical redefinition of the nature of fiscal process. Rather than an incremental advance in assessing taxing and spending, Richard Wagner opens new vistas by examining the foundations of collective activity. He rejects the standard treatment of fiscal management as a corrective to market failure, and starts with the first principles of government action. I don't know when I have learned more from a single book.' -- Michael Munger, Duke University, US'This is a highly original and creative argument by a major political economist to rethink how the public economy is studied. Instead of treating the public sector as a corrective agency for problems that may arise in the private economy, Professor Wagner proposes to study the "public square" in the same way that modern economists approach the "private square". This involves eschewing equilibrium theories and emphasizing evolutionary competitive processes, examining property rights structures, stressing the role of entrepreneurship, and, in short, applying the principles of the New Institutional Economics to government. Wagner gives many convincing examples of how to apply his approach, all to good effect. This is an important book that deserves to be read widely and taken seriously. Learning the lessons that Wagner wants to teach us holds the promise of turning the study of public economics into a proper scientific explanation of government rather than an empty exercise in evaluation and intervention.'BR>- Robert D. Tollison, Clemson University, USTable of ContentsContents: Preface 1. Contrasting Architectonics for a Theory of Public Finance 2. Property, State and Public Finance 3. State and Market: A Two-Forum Societal Architecture 4. Political Entrepreneurship within the Ecology of Enterprises 5. The Economic Organization of Political Enterprises 6. Revenue Extraction: Crossing the Tax–Expenditure Divide 7. Federalism, Polycentric Polities and Open Societies 8. Fiscal Sociology and the Challenge of Societal Agriculture Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThis book provides the reader with the basis for a theoretical understanding of public-sector finance in general - and more specifically, a comprehensive, policy-oriented application of that understanding to Japanese public finance.Particular emphasis is placed upon developing tools which can be used both theoretically and empirically to clarify essential economic concerns in Japan's public sector. These include the macroeconomic incidence of fiscal decentralization, dependence on government bonds for covering fiscal deficits, and social security reform. In analyzing Japan's underperforming public sector, the authors develop and recommend policy solutions aimed at achieving Japan's growth potential, improving the quality of the public sector, and strengthening the sector's contribution to the Japanese economy.Guiding the reader toward an overall understanding of public-sector reforms, decentralization and fiscal policy in Japan, this book will strongly appeal to academics, students and researchers with an interest in modern public finance theory and macroeconomic analysis.Trade Review'. . . covers valuable ground in exploring the complex world of Japan's public finances and public sector operations.' -- Albrecht Rothacher, ASIEN - German Journal for Politics, Economy and CultureTable of ContentsContents: Preface 1. Introduction 2. History of Postwar Public Finance 3. The Central Government Budget and Fiscal Policy 4. Aging and Intergenerational Conflict: Social Security Benefits and Burdens 5. Restoring Fiscal Balance in an Aging Japan 6. The Tax System and Its Reform 7. Local Public Finance and the Soft-budget Problem 8. Decentralization Reform 9. The Management and Sustainability of Government Debt 10. Reform of the Public Sector References Index

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Book SynopsisThe maintenance of financial stability is a key objective of monetary policy, but the record of regulators in achieving this has been lamentable in recent years. This failure has been matched by an equivalent inability to establish an appropriate theoretical basis for financial regulation. In this book, the authors demonstrate how to enhance the theory, modeling and practice of such regulation. The main determinant of financial instability is the default of financial institutions. The authors highlight the importance of the appropriate incorporation of default into macro-financial models and its interaction with liquidity. Besides covering the historical development and current stance of financial regulation, the book includes a number of policy-oriented chapters revealing how the authors' modeling approach can improve the process. This authoritative book will serve as a basis for future work on financial stability management for both academics and policy makers and provide guidance on how to undertake crisis prevention and resolution.Trade Review'Overall, I find Financial Stability in Practice: Towards an Uncertain Future by Goodhart and Tsomocos very useful in understanding how the financial sector works, why it should be regulated and how it can be regulated to achieve the main goal of financial stability.' -- Salewa Yinka Olawoye, Review of Keynesian EconomicsTable of ContentsContents: 1. Introduction Charles A.E. Goodhart and Dimitrios P. Tsomocos PART I: THE DEVELOPMENT OF FINANCIAL REGULATION 2. ‘Financial Supervision from an Historical Perspective: Was the Development of Such Supervision Designed, or Largely Accidental?’, Charles A.E. Goodhart, in David Mayes and Geoffrey E. Wood (eds), The Structure of Financial Regulation, London, Routledge, 2007, pp.43–64 3. ‘The Rationale for Regulation’, Charles Goodhart, Philipp Hartmann, David Llewellyn, Liliana Rojas-Suárez and Steven Weisbrod, Financial Regulation: Why, How and Where Now?, London: Routledge, 1998, pp.1–15 4. ‘Some New Directions for Financial Stability?’, C.A.E. Goodhart, in D. Mayes, R. Pringle and M. Taylor (eds), Towards a New Framework for Financial Stability, London: Central Banking, 2009, pp.5–24 5. ‘The Role of Macro-Prudential Supervision’, paper presented by C.A.E. Goodhart at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Conference on ‘Up from the Ashes: The Financial System after the Crisis’, May 11/12, 2010, Atlanta, Georgia 6. ‘How Should We Regulate the Financial Sector?’, Charles Goodhart, in Adair Turner, Andrew Haldane, Paul Woolley, Sushil Wadhwani, Charles Goodhart, Andrew Smithers, Andrew Large, John Kay, Martin Wolf, Peter Boone, Simon Johnson and Richard Layard (eds), The Future of Finance: The LSE Report, London: School of Economics & Political Science, 2010, pp.153–76 PART II: MODELLING 7. ‘A Model to Analyse Financial Fragility’, Charles A.E. Goodhart and Lea Zicchino, Financial Stability Review, June 2005, 106–15 8. ‘Equilibrium Analysis, Banking, Contagion and Financial Fragility’, Dimitrios P. Tsomocos, Working Paper 175, Bank of England, 2003, 1,3,5,7–59 9. ‘The Optimal Monetary Instrument for Prudential Purposes’, with P. Sunirand, Journal of Financial Stability, 7, 2011, 70–77 10. ‘On Dividend Restrictions and the Collapse of the Interbank Market’, with M.U. Peiris and A.P. Vardoulakis, Annals of Finance, 6 (4), 2010, 455–73 PART III: MEASUREMENT 11. ‘Towards a Measure of Financial Fragility’, with Oriol Aspachs and Lea Zicchino, Annals of Finance, 3 (1), 2007, 37–74 12. ‘Searching for a Metric for Financial Stability’, with O. Aspachs, M. Segoviano and L. Zicchino, Financial Markets Group Special Paper 167, London School of Economics, 2006 13. ‘Banking Stability Measures’, Miguel A. Segoviano and Charles Goodhart, IMF Working Paper, WP/09/4, January 2009, 1–54 14. ‘Default, Credit Growth and Asset Prices’, C.A.E. Goodhart, Boris Hofmann and M. Segoviano, in Charles Goodhart and Boris Hofmann (eds), House Prices and the Macroeconomy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, pp.145–72 PART IV: CAPITAL REQUIREMENTS AND PROCYCLICALITY 15. ‘Procyclicality and the New Basel Accord – Banks’ Choice of Loan Rating System’, Eva Catarineu-Rabell, Patricia Jackson and Dimitrios P. Tsomocos, Economic Theory, 26 (3), 2005, 537–57 16. ‘Basel and Procyclicality: A Comparison of the Standardised and IRB Approaches to an Improved Credit Risk Method’, C.A.E. Goodhart and M. Segoviano, Financial Markets Group Discussion Paper 524, London School of Economics, 2004 17 ‘Procyclicality and Volatility in the Financial System: The Implementation of Basel II and IAS 39’, Ashley Taylor and Charles Goodhart, in Stefan Gerlach and Paul Gruenwald (eds), Procyclicality of Financial Systems in Asia, Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, pp.9–37 18. ‘Is a Less Pro-cyclical Financial System an Achievable Goal?’, Charles Goodhart, National Institute Economic Review, 211 (1), 2010, R17–R26 PART V: THE STRUCTURAL ORGANISATION OF SUPERVISION 19. ‘The Organizational Structure of Banking Supervision’, C.A.E. Goodhart, Economic Notes, 31 (1), 2002, 1–41, 43, 45–6 20. ‘The Skill Profile of Central Bankers and Supervisors’, (Charles Goodhart, Dirk Schoenmaker and Paolo Dasgupta, European Finance Review, 6, 2002, 397–427 21. ‘The Changing Role of Central Banks’, C.A.E. Goodhart, BIS Working Paper 326, 2010, 1–16 PART VI: CONCLUSION 22. Conclusion Charles A.E. Goodhart and Dimitrios P. Tsomocos

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Book SynopsisBenefit-cost analysis reduces all of the impacts of a proposed policy change to a common unit of measurement. It is used in a wide variety of fields including agriculture, life and health, transportation and the environment.In this single volume the editors, both leading scholars in their field, present a judicious selection of previously published papers indispensable to the study of applied benefit-cost analysis. The comprehensive collection is an essential resource to scholars, researchers and policymakers alike.Table of ContentsContents: Acknowledgements Introduction Andrew Schmitz and Richard O. Zerbe PART I: AGRICULTURE AND AGRICULTURAL POLICY 1. Zvi Griliches (1958), ‘Research Costs and Social Returns: Hybrid Corn and Related Innovations’ 2. Erik Lichtenberg and David Zilberman (1986), ‘The Welfare Economics of Price Supports in U.S. Agriculture’ 3. Troy G. Schmitz, Andrew Schmitz and Chris Dumas (1997), ‘Gains From Trade, Inefficiency of Government Programs, and the Net Economic Effects of Trading’ 4. Andrew Schmitz, Frederick Rossi and Troy G. Schmitz (2007), ‘Agricultural Subsidies Under Decoupling’ 5. Rulon Pope, Jean-Paul Chavas and Richard Just (1983), ‘Economic Welfare Evaluations for Producers under Uncertainty’ PART II: EVALUATION OF SOCIAL PROGRAMS 6. David H. Greenberg and Douglas A. Wolf (1985), ‘Is Wage Matching Worth All the Trouble?’ 7. Morris S. Berman (1989), ‘Vision Care in a Juvenile Detention Facility’ 8. David H. Greenberg (1997), ‘The Leisure Bias in Cost–Benefit Analyses of Employment and Training Programs’ 9. Clive Belfield, Milagros Nores, Steve Barnett and Lawrence Schweinhart (2006), ‘The High/Scope Perry Preschool Program’ 10. Flavio Cunha and James Heckman (2007), ‘The Economics of Human Development: The Technology of Skill Formation’ PART III: IMPLEMENTATION AND STAKEHOLDER IMPACTS 11. Glenn P. Jenkins (1999), ‘Evaluation of Stakeholder Impacts in Cost–Benefit Analysis’ 12. Timothy L. McDaniels, Robin S. Gregory and Daryl Fields (1999), ‘Democratizing Risk Management: Successful Public Involvement in Local Water Management Decisions’ 13. Alvin Ulrich, Hartley Furtan and Andrew Schmitz (1986), ‘Public and Private Returns from Joint Venture Research: An Example from Agriculture’ PART IV: LIFE AND HEALTH 14. Lester B. Lave (1981), ‘Conflicting Objectives in Regulating the Automobile’ 15. David L. Weimer and Aidan R. Vining (1989), ‘An Illustration: Taxing Alcohol to Save Lives’ 16. Gary M. Ginsberg and Don S. Silverberg (1994), ‘A Cost–Benefit Analysis of Legislation for Bicycle Safety Helmets in Israel’ 17. Richard Gray and Stavroula Malla (2001), ‘The Evaluation of the Economic and External Health Benefits from Canola Research’ 18. W. Kip Viscusi and Joseph E. Aldy (2003), ‘The Value of a Statistical Life: A Critical Review of Market Estimates Throughout the World’ PART V: TRANSPORTATION 19. Anthony Boardman, Aidan Vining and W.G. Waters, II (1993), ‘Costs and Benefits through Bureaucratic Lenses: Example of a Highway Project’ 20. ‘What GAO Found’, in US GAO Highway and Transit Investments: Options for Improving Information on Projects’ 21. Troy G. Schmitz, Tim Highmoor and Andrew Schmitz (2002), ‘Termination of the WGTA: An Examination of Factor Market Distortions, Input Subsidies and Compensation’ PART VI: ENVIRONMENT 22. Raymond J. Kopp and V. Kerry Smith (1989), ‘Benefit Estimation Goes to Court: The Case of Natural Resource Damage Assessments’ 23. ‘Executive Summary’ 24. S. Farrow and M. Toman (1999), ‘Using Benefit–Cost Analysis to Improve Environmental Regulation’ 25. Richard T. Carson, Robert C. Mitchell, Michael Hanemann, Raymond J. Kopp, Stanley Presser and Paul A. Ruud (2003), ‘Contingent Valuation and Lost Passive Use: Damages from the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill’ PART VII: BETTER USE 26. John P. Hoehn and Alan Randall (1989), ‘Too Many Proposals Pass the Benefit Cost Test’ 27. Robert W. Hahn (1998), ‘Policy Watch: Government Analysis of the Benefits and Costs of Regulation’ 28. Kenneth J. Arrow, Maureen L. Cooper, George C. Eads, Robert W. Hahn, Lester B. Lave, Roger G. Noll, Paul R. Portney, Milton Russell, Richard Schmalensee, V. Kerry Smith and Robert N. Stavins (1996), ‘A Statement of Principles’ 29. Matthew A. Wilson and John P. Hoehn (2006), ‘Valuing Environmental Goods and Services Using Benefit Transfer: The State-of-the Art and Science’ 30. Daniel H. Cole (2007), ‘“Best Practice” Standards for Regulatory Benefit–Cost Analysis’ 31. Andrew Schmitz, Charles B. Moss and Troy G. Schmitz (2007), ‘Ethanol: No Free Lunch’ PART VIII: REGULATION 32. Richard O. Zerbe, Jr. (1980), ‘The Costs and Benefits of Early Regulation of the Railroads’ 33. Alvin Ulrich, William H. Furtan and Andrew Schmitz (1987), ‘The Cost of a Licensing System Regulation: An Example from Canadian Prairie Agriculture’ 34. Jason K. Burnett and Robert W. Hahn (2001), ‘A Costly Benefit: Economic Analysis Does Not Support EPA’s New Arsenic Rule’ 35. Richard Wilson (2001), ‘Underestimating Arsenic’s Risk: The Latest Science Supports Tighter Standards’ Name Index

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Book SynopsisThis major Handbook addresses fiscal relations between different levels of government under the general rubric of 'fiscal federalism', providing a review of the latest literature as well as an invaluable guide for practitioners and policy makers seeking informed policy options. The contributors include leading lights in the field, many of whom have themselves made seminal contributions to the literature.Comprehensive and wide in coverage, the issues covered range from federal systems to other forms of intergovernmental relations, such as supra-national constructs - namely, the European Union - unitary states, regional systems, and more decentralized operations, including community level organizations. The political economy approach emphasizes the importance of institutional arrangements, including the legal, political and administrative aspects, and information flows to ensure that there are appropriate incentives and sanctions to generate good governance. This Handbook also devotes attention to emerging issues, such as environmental protection, the sharing of natural resources among levels of government, corruption and the impact of federalism and decentralization on national unity. It will be a vital reference tool for the area for many years to come.Trade Review'This volume provides comprehensive coverage of fiscal federalism by some of the leading scholars in the field. . . This Handbook is an excellent addition to the present discourse on the role of the state in fiscal matters. This reviewer would recommend this book as a required text for a graduate or senior class on public finance or economic development. Researchers in economic development, public finance, and fiscal policy likewise would find this volume useful. Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduate through professional collections.' -- J. Raman, ChoiceTable of ContentsContents: Foreword Introduction: Fiscal Federalism – A Review of Developments in the Literature and Policy Ehtisham Ahmad and Giorgio Brosio PART I: APPROACHES TO FISCAL FEDERALISM 1. The Political Economy of Decentralization Ben Lockwood 2. Horizontal Competition Among Governments Pierre Salmon 3. Modelling Vertical Competition Albert Breton 4. Spatial Interactions Among Governments Frederico Revelli 5. Asymmetric Federalism and the Political Economy of Decentralization Roger D. Congleton 6. Functional, Overlapping and Competing Jurisdictions (FOCJ): A Complement and Alternative to Today’s Federalism Reiner Eichenberger and Bruno S. Frey 7. Contract Federalism Paul Bernd Spahn PART II: DECENTRALIZATION AND DEVELOPMENT 8. Decentralization and Development Pranab Bardhan 9. Fiscal Federalism in Planned Economies Govinda Rao 10. Decentralization and Service Delivery Junaid Ahmad, Shantayanan Devarajan, Stuti Khemani and Shekhar Shah PART III: IMPLEMENTING MULTILEVEL FISCAL SYSTEMS 11. The Assignment of Functions to Decentralized Government: From Theory to Practice Bernard Dafflon 12. Normative Versus Positive Theories of Revenue Assignments in Federations Maria Flavia Ambrosiano and Massimo Bordignon 13. Tax Competition in a Federal Setting John D. Wilson 14. Intergovernmental Redistributive Transfers: Efficiency and Equity Robin Boadway 15. On the Implementation of Transfers to Subnational Governments Ehtisham Ahmad and Bob Searle 16. Subnational Public Financial Management: Institutions and Macroeconomic Considerations Ehtisham Ahmad, Maria Albino-War and Raju Singh PART IV: EMERGING ISSUES 17. The Assignment of Revenue from Natural Resources Giorgio Brosio 18. Decentralization and the Environment Silvana Dalmazzone 19. Corruption and Decentralized Public Governance Anwar Shah 20. Fiscal Federalism and National Unity Richard M. Bird and Robert D. Ebel 21. Institutions of Federalism and Decentralized Government Brian Galligan Index

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Book SynopsisBenefit-cost analysis is at heart a subject of practicality and usefulness. With this in mind, the editor has chosen the most relevant previously published articles for these volumes. Having explored the theoretical and ethical underpinnings of the subject, the book then addresses some major policy issues and debates. These include the institutional arrangements through which benefit-cost analyses would be most useful to the policy and decision process, the need for a set of principles and standards to unify benefit-cost analysis methods, the use of general equilibrium analysis and the proper treatment of uncertainty and risk.In his new introduction, the editor offers his own particular viewpoint and raises issues which will intrigue both academics and practitioners.Trade Review‘A massive, impressive, thorough, exploration of the theoretical, practical and ethical underpinnings of the subject based on previously published material.’ -- Long Range PlanningTable of ContentsContents: Volume I Acknowledgements Introduction Richard O. Zerbe PART I CLASSIC HISTORICAL ARTICLES 1. Harold Hotelling (1938), ‘The General Welfare in Relation to Problems of Taxation and of Railway and Utility Rates’ 2. Lionel Robbins (1938), ‘Interpersonal Comparisons of Utility: A Comment’ 3. Nicholas Kaldor (1939), ‘Welfare Propositions of Economics and Interpersonal Comparisons of Utility’ 4. J.R. Hicks (1939), ‘The Foundations of Welfare Economics’ 5. Tibor de Scitovszky (1941), ‘A Note on Welfare Propositions in Economics’ 6. Paul A. Samuelson (1950), ‘Evaluation of Real National Income’ 7. John V. Krutilla (1961), ‘Welfare Aspects of Benefit-Cost Analysis’ 8. Arnold C. Harberger (1971), ‘Three Basic Postulates for Applied Welfare Economics: An Interpretive Essay’ 9. Robin W. Boadway (1974), ‘The Welfare Foundations of Cost-Benefit Analysis’ 10. E.J. Mishan (1982), ‘The New Controversy about the Rationale of Economic Evaluation’ PART II HISTORY OF USE 11. Theodore M. Porter (1995), ‘U.S. Army Engineers and the Rise of Cost–Benefit Analysis’ 12. Richard D. Morgenstern (1997), ‘The Legal and Institutional Setting for Economic Analysis at EPA’ PART III PHILOSOPHY AND FOUNDATION 13. Steven Kelman (1981), ‘Cost–Benefit Analysis: An Ethical Critique’ 14. Gerard Butters, John Calfee and Pauline Ippolito (1981), ‘Defending Cost–Benefit Analysis: Replies to Steven Kelman’ 15. Dale Whittington and Duncan MacRae, Jr. (1986), ‘The Issue of Standing in Cost-Benefit Analysis’ 16. Richard O. Zerbe, Jr. (1998), ‘Is Cost–Benefit Analysis Legal? Three Rules’ 17. Richard O. Zerbe, Jr., Yoram Bauman and Aaron Finkle (2006), ‘An Aggregate Measure for Benefit–Cost Analysis’ PART IV FACTORS AFFECTING WILLINGNESS TO PAY AND ACCEPT 18. Daniel Kahneman, Jack L. Knetsch and Richard H. Thaler (1990), ‘Experimental Tests of the Endowment Effect and the Coase Theorem’ 19. W. Michael Hanemann (1991), ‘Willingness to Pay and Willingness to Accept: How Much Can They Differ?’ 20. John K. Horowitz and Kenneth E. McConnell (2002), ‘A Review of WTA/WTP Studies’ 21. Jinhua Zhao and Catherine L. Kling (2004), ‘Willingness to Pay, Compensating Variation, and the Cost of Commitment’ 22. Jack Knetsch (2007), ‘Biased Valuations, Damage Assessments, and Policy Choices: The Choice of Measure Matters’ PART V CONTINGENT VALUATION 23. Daniel Kahneman and Jack L. Knetsch (1992), ‘Valuing Public Goods: The Purchase of Moral Satisfaction’ 24. V. Kerry Smith (1992), ‘Arbitrary Values, Good Causes, and Premature Verdicts’ 25. Daniel Kahneman and Jack L. Knetsch (1992), ‘Contingent Valuation and the Value of Public Goods: Reply’ 26. Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (1993), ‘Appendix I: Report of the NOAA Panel on Contingent Valuation’, excerpt from ‘Natural Resources Damage Assessments Under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990’ 27. W. Michael Hanemann (1994), ‘Valuing the Environment Through Contingent Valuation’ Name Index Volume II Acknowledgements An introduction by the editor to both volumes appears in Volume I PART I REVEALED PREFERENCE 1. V. Kerry Smith (1997), ‘Pricing What is Priceless: A Status Report on Non-Market Valuation of Environmental Resources’ 2. Raymond B. Palmquist (2005), ‘Weak Complementarity, Path Independence, and the Intuition of the Willig Condition’ PART II GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM 3. John Whalley (1975), ‘How Reliable is Partial Equilibrium Analysis?’ 4. Stephen J. Turnovsky, Haim Shalit and Andrew Schmitz (1980), ‘Consumer’s Surplus, Price Instability, and Consumer Welfare’ 5. Michael Hazilla and Raymond J. Kopp (1990), ‘Social Cost of Environmental Quality Regulations: A General Equilibrium Analysis’ 6. Lawrence H. Goulder and Roberton C. Williams III (2003), ‘The Substantial Bias from Ignoring General Equilibrium Effects in Estimating Excess Burden, and a Practical Solution’ 7. V. Kerry Smith, Holger Sieg, H. Spencer Banzhaf and Randall P. Walsh (2004), ‘General Equilibrium Benefits for Environmental Improvements: Projected Ozone Reductions under EPA’s Prospective Analysis for the Los Angeles Air Basin’ PART III DISCOUNT RATES 8. Tjalling C. Koopmans (1965), ‘On the Concept of Optimal Economic Growth’ 9. David F. Bradford (1975), ‘Constraints on Government Investment Opportunities and the Choice of Discount Rate’ 10. Robert C. Lind (1999), ‘Analysis for Intergenerational Decisionmaking’ 11. Martin L. Weitzman (2001), ‘Gamma Discounting’ 12. Richard O. Zerbe, Jr. (2004), ‘Should Moral Sentiments be Incorporated into Benefit–Cost Analysis? An Example of Long-Term Discounting’ 13. Mark A. Moore, Anthony E. Boardman, Aidan R. Vining, David L. Weimer and David H. Greenberg (2004), ‘“Just Give Me a Number!” Practical Values for the Social Discount Rate’ PART IV RISK AND UNCERTAINTY IN ANALYSIS 14. Baruch Fischhoff, Paul Slovic and Sarah Lichtenstein (1979), ‘Weighing the Risks’ 15. Alonzo Plough and Sheldon Krimsky (1987), ‘The Emergence of Risk Communication Studies: Social and Political Context’ 16. Robert A. Pollak (1996), ‘Government Risk Regulation’ 17. Jonathan Baert Wiener and John D. Graham (1995), ‘Resolving Risk Tradeoffs’ 18. National Research Council (U.S.) Committee on Risk-Based Analysis for Flood Damage Reduction (2000), ‘Beargrass Creek’ 19. Richard O. Zerbe, Jr. (2001), ‘6.7 Fairness and the Regard for Others’, from ‘The Problem of Missing Values in Normative Law and Economic Analysis’ 20. Scott Farrow (2004), ‘Using Risk Assessment, Benefit–Cost Analysis, and Real Options to Implement a Precautionary Principle’ 21. Richard A. Williams and Kimberly M. Thompson (2004), ‘Integrated Analysis: Combining Risk and Economic Assessments While Preserving the Separation of Powers’ PART V SELECT METHODOLOGICAL ARTICLES 22. Charles J. Cicchetti, A. Myrick Freeman III, Robert H. Haveman and Jack L. Knetsch (1971), ‘On the Economics of Mass Demonstrations: A Case Study of the November 1969 March on Washington’ 23. Richard Carson, Nicholas E. Flores and W. Michael Hanemann (1998), ‘Sequencing and Valuing Public Goods’ 24. Raymond B. Palmquist and V. Kerry Smith (2002), ‘The Use of Hedonic Property Value Techniques for Policy and Litigation’ Name Index

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Book SynopsisWhilst the prevailing orthodoxy of the expenditure retrenchment literatureis that globalisation and neo-liberal ideas are leading to a downsizing of the state, empirical research - basing its conclusions on patterns of welfare state spending - does not support such a view. This book brings a new perspective to bear by looking at what has been happening to other areas of the state's activity.Edited by Francis G. Castles, a leading authority in the field, and bringing together an outstanding group of British, German and American scholars, it examines trends in non-social or 'core' spending on public administration, defence, public order, education, economic affairs and debt financing and in the regulatory ordering of the economic sphere. The book not only opens up new areas of comparative public policy research, >but also demonstrates clearly that there have been real reductions in the reach of state in some areas, although patterns of causation are more complex and varied than generally presumed by the retrenchment literature.The research findings reported in The Disappearing State? provide pivotal, relevant and challenging core material for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate courses in public and social policy, political economy and the sociology of the modern state.Trade Review'Most comparative research on public expenditure retrenchment has concentrated on the welfare state. This exciting and innovative volume takes a new approach. It focuses instead on non-social programmes such as education, defence and economic affairs, demonstrates that this is where the real cost-cutting has taken place and shows, paradoxically, that these cuts have made social spending more politically salient in the public expenditure calculus. This is a book which extends the reach of our understanding of modern public policy at the same time as it extends our knowledge of the reach of the modern state.' -- Stephan Leibfried, University of Bremen, Germany'In this volume, Frank Castles and his team of experts continue the myth-busting process begun in Castles's 2004 analysis of welfare state crisis. Their combination of statistical sophistication and theoretical reflection on the political economy of public expenditure slices straight through the myriad misplaced assumptions regarding the decline of the state, globalization, "races to the bottom" and welfare retrenchment. This book makes compulsory reading for all social scientists.' -- Martin Rhodes, University of Denver, US'I like simple sentences, cross-country collaborations, great graphs, and compelling conclusions. Here, remarkably, we have a book with all four. This is vibrant writing on a topic - the long reach of state spending - that figures in everyone's lives. It is hard to know whether the book will be more gripping for the Prime Minister or for high-brow professors of economics and political science.' -- Andrew Oswald, University of Warwick, UKTable of ContentsContents: Preface 1. Introduction Francis G. Castles 2. Testing the Retrenchment Hypothesis: An Aggregate Overview Francis G. Castles 3. Data on the Functions of Government: Where Are We Now? Neil Fraser and Paul Norris 4. The Changing Cost of Government: Trends in the State Overhead Budget Richard Parry 5. Sinking Budgets and Ballooning Prices: Recent Developments Connected to Military Spending Thomas R. Cusack 6. Expenditure on Public Order and Safety Paul Norris 7. Testing the Retrenchment Hypothesis: Educational Spending, 1960–2002 Manfred G. Schmidt 8. The Real Race to the Bottom: What Happened to Economic Affairs Expenditure After 1980? Herbert Obinger and Reimut Zohlnhöfer 9. A Mortgage on the Future? Public Debt Expenditure and Its Determinants, 1980–2001 Uwe Wagschal 10. Moving Beyond Expenditure Accounts: The Changing Contours of the Regulatory State, 1980–2003 Nico A. Siegel Index

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Book SynopsisFiscal autonomy could raise economic growth and efficiency in Scotland, benefiting both Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom. C. Paul Hallwood and Ronald MacDonald discuss how other reform proposals, which amount to cutting Scotland's block grant, would not be seen as legitimate by Scottish voters, and would be unlikely to reduce the burden on the Westminster budget. The authors demonstrate how public finances can be organized to minimize the price of tranquillity in multi-regional states. Advances proposed in the 'new fiscal federalism' literature are used to explain why fiscal autonomy would be a superior system compared to the present block grant system and fiscal federalism, whereby Scotland would be granted limited tax powers. Their extensive review of recent econometric studies finds that tax devolution in other countries has been largely successful.Trade Review'The Barnett formula is doomed. These authors provide a readable and convincing guide to the alternatives. The volume is a wonderful example of what tight economic reasoning can do - its case for fiscal autonomy is unanswerable'. -- Professor Michael Artis, University of Swansea, UK'Written by two economists independent of the sort of political biases that mar so much of the discussion this book offers a refreshing, analytical and authoritative economic analysis of the various paths for fiscal reform in Scotland.’ -- Professor Drew Scott, The University of Edinburgh, UK'Hallwood and MacDonald make a compelling case for the devolution of fiscal authority to Scotland to increase fiscal autonomy and improve fiscal performance. They suggest not only the need for such devolution but provide a careful analysis and blueprint of how to do it.' -- Wallace E. Oates, University of Maryland, USTable of ContentsContents: Foreword by Drew Scott Preface 1. Introduction 2. Searching for a Politically and Economically Rational Public Funding Model for Scotland 3. The Economic Case for Fiscal Devolution 4. Objectives of an Effective Fiscal Federal System 5. Fiscal Federalism: A Scottish Perspective 6. The Case for Scottish Fiscal Autonomy 7. A Restatement of the Case for Scottish Fiscal Autonomy 8. Fiscal Devolution in Some Other Countries 9. Empirical Evidence: Tax Devolution and Prosperity 10. A Separate Currency for Scotland? 11. Conclusion Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisTaxation is a major issue in the economic and political spheres. This book focuses on a sample of developing countries from Asia and Latin America that experienced an economic and democratic transition during the period 1990-2004. Using a unique dataset the authors show that tax revenue is higher in more democratic regimes, consistent with the standard view that democracies have to satisfy the redistributive needs of the electorate. They also find that a second relationship between the level of democracy and the composition of taxes (mainly direct versus indirect) is much harder to predict. However, a comparison with new EU member states suggests that more mature democracies are associated with higher levels of direct tax. This unique book in a relatively under-researched subject area will prove essential reading for academics, researchers and practitioners focusing on political economy, public finance and the economics of taxation.Trade Review’In this original book, Paola Profeta and Simona Scabrosetti use data and information on political institutions from developing and new EU member countries to investigate the political economy of taxation. How do political institutions influence tax burdens and tax structures? They generate highly interesting results. . . I am sure that this innovative book will attract the attention of many experts interested in taxation, regardless of the professional field to which they are anchored. I expect this book will be cited often.’ -- Vito Tanzi, Former Director, Fiscal Affairs Department of the IMF’Providing light to a subject that is not often enough discussed, The Political Economy of Taxation is packed cover to cover with thoughtful information, and a core addition to any international economic studies collection.’ -- The Midwest Book Review’Paola Profeta and Simona Scabrosetti have provided us with a novel comparative analysis of the tax systems in Asia, Latin America and the new EU countries. Anyone who wants to know how contemporary empirical models can be used to study the political economy of the tax mix in developing and transition economies will want to read this book.’ -- Stanley Winer, Carleton University, CanadaTable of ContentsContents: Preface 1. Introduction 2. The Political Economy of Democracies: A Review of the Literature 3. Data, Approach and Overview 4. Asia 5. Latin America 6. Asia, Latin America and New EU Members Countries 7. Data Appendix: List of all Variables and their Sources Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThis book contributes to the current debates on the shadow economy and related issues of tax evasion and corruption. The approach taken here is one that will develop a better understanding of these related issues, which are increasingly seen as impediments to country competitiveness and economic growth.Economists and policymakers are increasingly focused on how the shadow economy operates. The contributors discuss how effective corporate governance may help to reduce both the occurrence and effects of illegal activities. The book begins by considering institutional governance and how issues such as economic growth and development can be better understood by gaining a deeper understanding of the decision-making process. The importance of collective persuasion and collective decision-making in an institutional context is illustrated. The remainder of the work details a series of empirical studies outlining the role of governance and institutional capacity in assessing economic performance, the role of political competition in reducing corruption and measures of, and influences on, corruption in different countries around the world.Institutions such as the WTO, World Bank and the IMF will find much to engage them in this book as will policy makers in government and research policy agencies. It will also hold great appeal to academics (postgraduate and above) in the fields of political economy, economic development and international economics.Trade Review'. . . the book provides interesting insights in the correlation and links between institutions, shadow economy and corruption and is worth reading. . . the combination of theoretical and empirical elements makes reading the book worthwhile. In a time, when shadow economy and corruption are main topics on the political as well as on the economic agenda, several aspects highlighted in this book should be discussed by academics and politicians.' -- Dominik H. Enste, Journal of Economics and Statistics'This is an outstanding collection of articles on the nexus between the shadow economy and institutional quality. Combining theory with rigorous econometrics, the collection is comprehensive and insightful, making it a work that the students of institutions and development cannot ignore.' -- Axel Dreher, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich, SwitzerlandTable of ContentsContents: Preface PART I: OVERVIEW 1. Governance and Illegal Activities: A Survey of Recent Developments and Issues Michael Pickhardt and Edward Shinnick PART II: KEY ISSUES OF INSTITUTIONAL GOVERNANCE 2. The Political Economy of Governance and Development: Towards a New Worldview Ismail Adams 3. A Dynamic Theory of Collective Persuasion Athanassios Pitsoulis 4. On the Optimal Sanction Structure When Individuals are Imperfectly Informed about the Probability of Apprehension Tim Friehe PART III: EMPIRICAL STUDIES ON INSTITUTIONS, GOVERNANCE CORRUPTION AND THE SHADOW ECONOMY 5. Institutional Capacity and the Celtic Tiger Economy: Ireland in Comparative Perspective Frank Barry 6. Reducing Petty Corruption: What Role for a More Competitive Political System? John K. Wilson 7. Shadow Economies and Corruption all over the World: What do we Really Know? Friedrich Schneider 8. Determinants of Shadow Economy in Tunisia and Algeria: A Firm-Level Analysis Clara Delavallade 9. “It’s a Lot, But Let It Stay”: How Tax Evasion is Perceived Across Italy Carlo Fiorio and Alberto Zanardi 10. Why Do Individuals Evade Payroll and Income Taxation in Estonia? Kenneth A. Kriz, Jaanika Meriküll, Alari Paulus, Karsten Staehr Index

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Book SynopsisThis authoritative collection presents seminal papers from leading academics charting recent developments in public finance. The two-volume set encompasses numerous sections including the public sector in a market economy, market imperfections, growth implications of public policies and efficiency and distributive implications of public policies. Professor Tanzi and Dr Zee have selected key papers to reflect the scholarly debates and pivotal arguments surrounding this field of study. This indispensable collection, with an original introduction by the editors, will be of immense value to students, scholars and practitioners interested in this topical and relevant subject.Table of ContentsContents: Volume I: Resource Allocation and Distribution Acknowledgements Introduction Vito Tanzi and Howell Zee PART I PUBLIC SECTOR IN A MARKET ECONOMY 1. George J. Stigler (1968), ‘The Government of the Economy’ 2. Kenneth J. Arrow (1977), ‘The Organization of Economic Activity: Issues Pertinent to the Choice of Market Versus Nonmarket Allocation’ 3. Vito Tanzi (2005), ‘The Economic Role of the State in the 21st Century’ PART II MARKET IMPERFECTIONS AND LIMITS TO PUBLIC INTERVENTION 4. George A. Akerlof (1970), ‘The Market for “Lemons”: Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism’ 5. Mancur Olson (1982), ‘The Logic’ 6. R.H. Coase (1994), ‘The Institutional Structure of Production’ 7. Avinash Dixit and Mancur Olson (2000), ‘Does Voluntary Participation Undermine the Coase Theorem?’ 8. Avinash Dixit (2009), ‘Governance Institutions and Economic Activity’ PART III INCENTIVES, SOCIAL CHOICES AND PRIVATE PROVISION OF PUBLIC GOODS 9. T. Nicolaus Tideman and Gordon Tullock (1976), ‘A New and Superior Process for Making Social Choices’ 10. James M. Buchanan (1983), ‘The Public Choice Perspective’ 11. Theodore Bergstrom, Lawrence Blume and Hal Varian (1986), ‘On the Private Provision of Public Goods’ 12. Amartya Sen (1999), ‘The Possibility of Social Choice’ 13. Rebecca M. Blank (2000), ‘When Can Public Policy Makers Rely on Private Markets? The Effective Provision of Social Services’ 14. Jean-Jacques Laffont and David Martimort (2002), ‘Incentives in Economic Thought’ PART IV EFFICIENCY AND DISTRIBUTIVE IMPLICATIONS OF PUBLIC POLICIES 15. Edmund S. Phelps (1973), ‘Taxation of Wage Income for Economic Justice’ 16. John Rawls (1974), ‘Some Reasons for the Maximin Criterion’ 17. Arthur M. Okun (1975), ‘Increasing Equality in an Efficient Economy’ 18. A.B. Atkinson and J.E. Stiglitz (1976), ‘The Design of Tax Structure: Direct Versus Indirect Taxation’ 19. J.A. Mirrlees (1982), ‘The Economic Uses of Utilitarianism’ 20. Don Fullerton and Diane Lim Rogers (1991), ‘Lifetime Versus Annual Perspectives on Tax Incidence’ 21. Assar Lindbeck, Sten Nyberg and Jörgen W. Weibull (2003), ‘Social Norms and Welfare State Dynamics’ 22. Yan Chen and Sherry Xin Li (2009), ‘Group Identity and Social Preferences’ PART V INTERJURISDICTIONAL POLICY DIMENSIONS 23. Roger H. Gordon (1983), ‘An Optimal Taxation Approach to Fiscal Federalism’ 24. Martin C. McGuire (1991), ‘Group Composition, Collective Consumption, and Collaborative Production’ 25. Oded Hochman, David Pines and Jacques-François Thisse (1995), ‘On the Optimal Structure of Local Governments’ 26. Wallace E. Oates (1999), ‘An Essay on Fiscal Federalism’ 27. Todd Sandler (2002), ‘Demand and Institutions for Regional Public Goods’ 28. Robin Boadway (2006), ‘Intergovernmental Redistributive Transfers: Efficiency and Equity’ 29. Agnar Sandmo (2003), ‘International Aspects of Public Goods Provision’ Volume II: Stabilization and Growth Acknowledgements An introduction to both volumes by the editors appears in Volume I PART I DEFICITS, GOVERNMENT BUDGET CONSTRAINT, AND INFLATION 1. Alan S. Blinder and Robert M. Solow (1973), ‘Does Fiscal Policy Matter?’ 2. Robert J. Barro (1974), ‘Are Government Bonds Net Wealth?’ 3. Vito Tanzi (1978), ‘Inflation, Real Tax Revenue, and the Case for Inflationary Finance: Theory with an Application to Argentina’ 4. Thomas J. Sargent and Neil Wallace (1981), ‘Some Unpleasant Monetarist Arithmetic’ 5. Olivier J. Blanchard (1985), ‘Debt, Deficits, and Finite Horizons’ 6. Alan J. Auerbach, Jagadeesh Gokhale and Laurence J. Kotlikoff (1991), ‘Generational Accounts: A Meaningful Alternative to Deficit Accounting’ 7. Vito Tanzi, Mario I. Blejer and Mario O. Teijeiro (1993), ‘Effects of Inflation on Measurement of Fiscal Deficits: Conventional Versus Operational Measures’ 8. Hana Polackova Brixi and Ashoka Mody (2002), ‘Dealing with Government Fiscal Risk: An Overview’ PART II CAPITAL MOBILITY, GLOBALIZATION AND INTERDEPENDENCE OF POLICY 9. Jacob A. Frenkel and Assaf Razin (1988), ‘Introduction’, ‘Government Spending Policies’, ‘Tax Policies’, ‘Concluding Remarks’ 10. James Tobin (1996), ‘Prologue’ 11. Peter Birch Sørensen (2004), ‘International Tax Coordination: Regionalism Versus Globalism’ 12. Jeffrey A. Frankel (2006), ‘Twin Deficits and Twin Decades’ 13. James R. Hines Jr. (2007), ‘Corporate Taxation and International Competition’ PART III RULES, DISCRETION AND INTERTEMPORAL CONSISTENCY OF OPTIMAL POLICES 14. Stanley Fischer (1980), ‘Dynamic Inconsistency, Cooperation and the Benevolent Dissembling Government’ 15. Mats Persson, Torsten Persson and Lars E.O. Svensson (1987), ‘Time Consistency of Fiscal and Monetary Policy’ 16. Fabrizio Balassone and Daniele Franco (2000), ‘Public Investment, the Stability Pact and the “Golden Rule”’ 17. George Kopits (2007), ‘Fiscal Responsibility Framework: International Experience and Implications for Hungary’ PART IV GROWTH IMPLICATIONS OF PUBLIC POLICIES 18. David Alan Aschauer (1989), ‘Is Public Expenditure Productive?’ 19. Robert J. Barro (1990), ‘Government Spending in a Simple Model of Endogenous Growth’ 20. William Easterly and Sergio Rebelo (1993), ‘Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth: An Empirical Investigation’ 21. Nancy L. Stokey and Sergio Rebelo (1995), ‘Growth Effects of Flat-Rate Taxes’ 22. Kevin A. Hassett and R. Glenn Hubbard (1997), ‘Tax Policy and Investment’ 23. Alan J. Auerbach (2008), ‘Tax Reform in the Twenty-first Century’

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Book SynopsisThe shadow economy (also known as the black or underground economy) covers a vast array of trade, goods and services that are not part of the official economy of a country. This original and comprehensive Handbook presents the latest research on the size and development of the shadow economy, which remains an integral component of the economies of most developing and many developed countries. The volume explores the driving forces behind the shadow economy and highlights important regional variations. The expert authors address the whole spectrum of issues including tax moral, government institutions, corruption and illicit work. Importantly the book also examines recent progress in how the shadow economy is measured and estimated. This well-documented and authoritative study will appeal to economists and researchers, as well as academics and students in the fields of economics, political science and social science. It will also be of interest to anyone seeking a comprehensive investigation into the workings of shadow economy.Trade Review‘. . . the volume is rich in contents and breaks new ground in several aspects. It focuses on a current and relevant topic and contains many details and references to further studies and research issues. It is also well structured and carefully edited. . . It is hoped that this book gets the same attention in the scientific community and beyond - it’s worth it.’ -- Hannelore Weck-Hannemann, Jahrbucher für Nationalokonomie und Statistik‘Over a number of years, Friedrich Schneider and his team of collaborators have made an impressive effort to estimate the size of the shadow economy. This volume presents their work on data for the majority of the world’s countries and also contains attempts to explain the driving forces behind the size and growth of the hidden economy. It will become a central reference for all economists interested in this aspect of the interaction between the public and private sectors.’ -- Agnar Sandmo, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, NorwayTable of ContentsContents: Introduction Friedrich Schneider PART I: SIZE AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE SHADOW ECONOMIES ALL OVER THE WORLD 1. Shadow Economies All Over the World: New Estimates for 162 Countries from 1999 to 2007 Friedrich Schneider, Andreas Buehn and Claudio E. Montenegro 2. Survey on the Shadow Economy and Undeclared Work in OECD Countries Lars P. Feld and Friedrich Schneider 3. The Size and Development of the Shadow Economy in India: A First Attempt at a Public Choice Explanation Kausik Chaudhuri and Friedrich Schneider 4. Size, Development and Perception of the Shadow Economy in Switzerland Christoph A. Schaltegger PART II: REGIONAL VARIATION IN THE SIZE AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE SHADOW ECONOMY 5. Regional Variations in the Nature of the Shadow Economy: Evidence from a Survey of 27 European Union Member States Colin C. Williams and Jan Windebank 6. Regional Patterns of the Shadow Economy: Modelling Issues and Evidence from the European Union Helmut Herwartz, Friedrich Schneider and Egle Tafenau PART III: SHADOW ECONOMY, ILLICIT WORK AND RELATED ACTIVIES 7. The Shadow Economy and Do-it-Yourself Activities: What Do We Know? Andreas Buehn and Alexander Karmann 8. The Shadow Economy in the Residential Construction Sector Christopher Bajada 9. Who is Working Illicitly and Why? Insights from Representative Survey Data in Germany Dominik H. Enste PART IV: TAX MORALE AND THE SHADOW ECONOMY 10. Tax Morale, Tax Evasion and the Shadow Economy Gebhard Kirchgässner 11. The Link between the Intrinsic Motivation to Comply and Compliance Behaviour: A Critical Appraisal of Existing Evidence Martin Halla 12. Deterrence Policy and the Size of the Shadow Economy in Germany: An Institutional and Empirical Analysis Lars P. Feld, Andreas J. Schmidt and Friedrich Schneider PART V: CORRUPTION AND THE SHADOW ECONOMY 13. The Impact of Institutions on the Shadow Economy and Corruption: A Latent Variables Approach Axel Dreher, Christos Kotsogiannis and Steve McCorriston 14. Shadow Economy, Voice and Accountability, and Corruption Benno Torgler, Friedrich Schneider and Alison Macintyre Index

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Book SynopsisStruggles over what a region receives, or should receive, from the budget of the central government are common to many countries. Discussions often focus on the measures of ?net fiscal flows? or ?fiscal balances? provided by the government or other actors. This unique book shows just how these flows are computed then interpreted and clarifies the often misunderstood economic and political motives that explain why some regions receive more monies than others.The Political Economy of Inter-Regional Fiscal Flows provides an overview of the main methods currently being used to measure ?fiscal flows?, highlighting the advantages of the different approaches and interpreting their results. The book reviews the political economy literature that analyses the determinants of inter-regional ?fiscal flows?. Particular attention is devoted to the relationship between ?fiscal flows? and country stability, with methodological contributions and country studies both focusing on this issue. The contributing economists and political scientists provide a state-of-the-art study that will prove to be of great use to academics and practitioners in public sector economics and finance.Table of ContentsContents: Preface 1. Inter-regional Fiscal Flows: Introduction to the Issues Núria Bosch, Marta Espasa and Albert Solé Ollé PART I: COUNTING MONIES: MEASUREMENT AND PRACTICE OF INTER-REGIONAL FISCAL FLOWS 2. Inter-regional Fiscal Flows: Measurement Tools Giuseppe C. Ruggeri 3. Inter-regional Fiscal Flows: Interpretation Issues François Vaillancourt Comment by Núria Bosch Comment by Antoni Zabalza 4. Constitutional Reforms, Fiscal Decentralization and Regional Fiscal Flows in Italy Maria Flavia Ambrosanio, Massimo Bordignon and Floriana Cerniglia 5. Measurement and Practice of Fiscal Flows: The Case of Belgium Paul Van Rompuy 6. Inter-regional Fiscal Flows: Canada Giuseppe C. Ruggeri Comment by François Vaillancourt 7. Inter-regional Fiscal Flows: Methodologies, Results and their Determinant Factors for Spain Marta Espasa and Núria Bosch Comment by Guillem López-Casasnovas Comment by Ramon Barberán PART II: BEYOND THE DATA: WHY SOME REGIONS GET MORE MONEY 8. Federalism and Inter-regional Redistribution Jonathan Rodden Comment by Carles Boix 9. Decentralization by Politicians: Creation of Grants-financed Local Jurisdictions Stuti Khemani 10. The Political Rationale of Regional Financing in Spain Sandra León Comment by Santiago Lago 11. The Determinants of Regional Transport Investment Across Europe Achim Kemmerling and Andreas Stephan 12. The Determinants of the Regional Allocation of Infrastructure Investment in Spain Albert Solé Ollé Comment by Germà Bel PART III: IN OR OUT? REGIONAL REDISTRIBUTION AND THE STABILITY OF FEDERATIONS 13. Federalism, Regional Redistribution and Country Stability Enrico Spolaore Comment by Massimo Bordignon 14. The Costs and Benefits of Staying Together: The Catalan Case in Spain Elisenda Paluzie 15. The Costs and Benefits of Constitutional Options for Québec and Canada François Vaillancourt 16. Staying Together? Scotland and the Rest of the United Kingdom David Bell Index

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Book SynopsisThe last few decades have presented a new set of challenges and opportunities for public finances. Demographic trends have put substantial pressure on non-discretionary public expenditures such as health care, while legal challenges have put pressure on education financing. The author illustrates how these national trends have also impacted state and local finances ? some directly, others indirectly. The economic downturn further constrains state and local governments? options for dealing with national trends. Constituents? sentiment toward the size of government further exacerbates fiscal choices for state and local governments.In this broad and illuminating volume, experts on public finance discuss innovations in state and local tax policy implemented or considered over the course of the last three decades. The authors provide original work that analyzes whether state and local governments have ?gone outside the box? to deal with the strains of current public finances or have gotten along by adhering to the status quo. Well-known scholars in the area of state and local public finance consider actual practices and analyze potential policy changes for the future.Public policy and public finance scholars and students as well as policy makers will find much of interest in this impressive and original collection.Table of ContentsContents: PART I: THE PERFECT STORM? 1. Introduction and Overview Sally Wallace 2. Major State–Local Policy Challenges: Outside-the-Box Solutions Needed Ronald C. Fisher 3. Genesis of State–Local Creativity Robert Tannenwald, Jennifer Weiner and Igor Popov Discussant Comments: Mary Mathewes Kassis Discussant Comments: Jason S. Seligman PART II: HOW STATES COPE WITH ALTERNATIVE STRUCTURES 4. Going Without an Income Tax: How do States do it? David L. Sjoquist 5. California’s State and Local Revenue Structure After Proposition 13: Is Denial the Appropriate Way to Cope? Robert W. Wassmer Discussant Comments: Don Bruce PART III: NEW FORMS OF TAXATION 6. An Exploration of Various Corporate Tax Structures in Georgia: Some Effects of Moving from Three-Factor Apportionment of Corporate Income to a Gross Receipts Tax Jonathan Rork and Laura Wheeler 7. Can Georgia Move from Income Tax to Consumption Tax? Sally Wallace Discussant Comments: William J. Smith PART IV: EVALUATING STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT FINANCES AND BUDGETING 8. Reaching and Maintaining Structural Balance: Leaders in the States Katherine Willoughby 9. Fiscal Limitations on Local Choice: The Imposition and Effects of Local Government Tax and Expenditure Limitations Daniel R. Mullins Discussant Comments: Kurt Thurmaier Out-of-the-Box Conference: An Epilogue Bert Waisanen Index

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Book SynopsisFiscal federalism has been the subject of much scholarly debate over the years. These volumes successfully bring together seminal articles from the past fifty years to demonstrate how the focus has evolved from 'first generation' to 'second generation' theories of intergovermental relations. The editors enhance the collection with detailed analyses of how competition affects relations between varying levels of government, and examine the hypotheses underlying the theory of fiscal federalism. This set of authoritative papers will be an indispensable reference source for scholars and practitioners in this field.Table of ContentsContents: Volume I – How Federal and Decentralized Systems Work and Institutional Underpinnings Acknowledgements Introduction Ehtisham Ahmad and Giorgio Brosio PART I THEORETICAL ADVANCES 1. Roger B. Porter (1977) ‘John Stuart Mill and Federalism’ 2. Wallace E. Oates (2008) ‘On the Evolution of Fiscal Federalism: Theory and Institutions’ 3. Mancur Olson, Jr., (1969), ‘The Principle of “Fiscal Equivalence”: The Division of Responsibilities Among Different Levels of Government’ 4. Vincent Ostrom, Charles M. Tiebout and Robert Warren (1961), ‘The Organization of Government in Metropolitan Areas: A Theoretical Inquiry’ 5. Wallace E. Oates (1981), ‘On Local Finance and the Tiebout Model’ 6. Albert Breton (1987), ‘Towards a Theory of Competitive Federalism’ 7. Paul Seabright (1996), ‘Accountability and Decentralisation in Government: An Incomplete Contracts Model’ 8. Ben Lockwood (2009), ‘Political Economy Approaches to Fiscal Decentralization’ 9. Pierre Salmon (1987), ‘Decentralization as an Incentive Scheme’ PART II MOBILITY AND STRATEGIC BEHAVIOUR 10. Federico Revelli (2008), ‘Performance Competition in Local Media Markets’ 11. Jan K. Brueckner (2003), ‘Strategic Interaction Among Governments: An Overview of Empirical Studies’ 12. Michael Keen (1998), ‘Vertical Tax Externalities in the Theory of Fiscal Federalism’ 13. Ravi Kanbur and Michael Keen (1993), ‘Jeux Sans Frontières: Tax Competition and Tax Coordination When Countries Differ in Size’ 14. David E. Wildasin (2003), ‘Liberalization and the Spatial Allocation of Population in Developing and Transition Countries’ 15. Avinash Dixit and John Londregan (1998), ‘Fiscal Federalism and Redistributive Politics’ PART III INSTITUTIONS 16. Pierre Salmon (2002), ‘Decentralization and Supranationality: The Case of the European Union’ 17. Bruno S. Frey and Reiner Eichenberger (1996), ‘FOCJ: Competitive Governments for Europe’ 18. Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (2007), ‘A Contractual Approach to Multi-level Governance’ 19. Roger D. Congleton, Andreas Kyriacou and Jordi Bacaria (2009), ‘A Theory of Menu Federalism: Decentralization by Political Agreement’ 20. J. Peter Meekison, Hamish Telford and Harvey Lazar (2002), ‘The Institutions of Executive Federalism: Myths and Realities’ 21. Stephen Soul and Brian Dollery (2000), ‘An Analysis of the Criteria Used by Australian Local Government Amalgamation Inquiries Between 1960 and 1992’ 22. Tugrul Gurgur and Anwar Shah (2002), ‘Localization and Corruption: Panacea or Pandora’s Box?’ 23. C. Simon Fan, Chen Lin and Daniel Treisman (2009), ‘Political Decentralization and Corruption: Evidence from Around the World’ Volume II – Federal and Decentralized Policy, Governance, Issues and Challenges An Introduction to both volumes by the editors appears in Volume I PART I DECENTRALIZED POLICIES AND GOVERNANCE 1. Ehtisham Ahmad, Giorgio Brosio and Vito Tanzi (2008), ‘Local Service Provision in Selected OECD Countries: Do Decentralized Operations Work Better?’ 2. Pranab Bardhan and Dilip Mookherjee (2005), ‘Decentralizing Anti-poverty Program Delivery in Developing Countries’ 3. Jean-Philippe Platteau (2009), ‘Information Distortion, Elite Capture and Task Complexity in Decentralized Development’ 4. Gabriella Montinola, Yingyi Qian and Barry R. Weingast (1995), ‘Federalism, Chinese Style: The Political Basis for Economic Success in China’ 5. Ehtisham Ahmad, Keping Li and Thomas Richardson (2002), ‘Recentralization in China?’ PART II FINANCING AND ACCOUNTABILITY 6. Maria Flavia Ambrosanio and Massimo Bordignon (2006), ‘Normative Versus Positive Theories of Revenue Assignments in Federations’ 7. Wallace E. Oates (1999), ‘Local Property Taxation: An Assessment’ 8. Robin Boadway (2009), ‘The Design of a VAT for Multi-Government Jurisdictions: Lessons from Canada’ 9. Richard A. Musgrave (1961), ‘Approaches to a Fiscal Theory of Political Federalism’ 10. Christos Kotsogiannis and Robert Schwager (2008), ‘Accountability and Fiscal Equalization’ 11. Stephen J. Bailey and Stephen Connolly (1998), ‘The Flypaper Effect: Identifying Areas for Further Research’ 12. Ehtisham Ahmad, José González Anaya, Giorgio Brosio, Mercedes Garcia-Escribano, Ben Lockwood and Ernesto Revilla (2007), ‘Why Focus On Spending Needs Factors? The Political Economy of Fiscal Transfer Reforms in Mexico’ 13. Ori Haimanko, Michel Le Breton and Shlomo Weber (2005), ‘Transfers in a Polarized Country: Bridging the Gap Between Efficiency and Stability’ PART III TAXATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES 14. Charles E. McLure, Jr. (1983), ‘Fiscal Federalism and the Taxation of Economic Rents’ 15. Giorgio Brosio (2003), ‘Oil Revenue and Fiscal Federalism’ PART IV GOVERNANCE CONSIDERATIONS 16. Ehtisham Ahmad, Maria Albino-War and Raju Singh (2006), ‘Subnational Public Financial Management: Institutions and Macroeconomic Considerations’ 17. Thomas J. Nechyba (2008), ‘Public and Private School Competition and U.S. Fiscal Federalism’ 18. Ivan Barankay and Ben Lockwood (2007), ‘Decentralization and the Productive Efficiency of Government: Evidence From Swiss Cantons’ 19. Jon Magnussen, Terje P. Hagen and Oddvar M. Kaarboe (2007), ‘Centralized or Decentralized? A Case Study of Norwegian Hospital Reform’ 20. Keith G. Banting and Stan Corbett (2002), ‘Health Policy and Federalism: An Introduction’ PART V MACRO-FISCAL MANAGEMENT AND POLITICAL ECONOMY OF SUB NATIONAL DEBT 21. Yingyi Qian and Gérard Roland (1998), ‘Federalism and the Soft Budget Constraint’ 22. Jonathan Rodden and Erik Wibbels (2002), ‘Beyond the Fiction of Federalism: Macroeconomic Management in Multitiered Systems’ 23. Bernd Huber and Marco Runkel (2008), ‘Interregional Redistribution and Budget Institutions Under Asymmetric Information’ PART VI ENVIRONMENT AND NATURAL DISASTERS 24. Wallace E. Oates (2002), ‘A Reconsideration of Environmental Federalsim’ 25. Richard L. Revesz (1997), ‘Federalism and Environmental Regulation: A Normative Critique’ 26. Alistair Ulph (1998), ‘Political Institutions and the Design of Environmental Policy in a Federal System with Asymmetric Information’ 27. Timothy J. Goodspeed and Andrew Haughwout (2007), ‘On the Optimal Design of Disaster Insurance in a Federation’

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Book SynopsisThis book advances a social-theoretic treatment of public finance, which contrasts with the typical treatment of government as an agent of intervention into a market economy. To start, Richard Wagner construes government not as an agent but as a polycentric process of interaction, just as is a market economy. The theory of markets and the theory of public finance are thus construed as complementary components of a broader endeavor of social theorizing, with both seeking to provide insight into the emergence of generally coordinated relationships within society. The author places analytical focus on emergent processes of development rather than on states of equilibrium, and with much of that development set in motion by conflict among people and their plans. Some of the book's defining characteristics include: Budgets emerge through organizationally constituted political entrepreneurship Government is construed as a process of interaction and participation and not as a unitary entity of intervention Government and markets are incorporated into a unified theory of property which is traced to human nature and its requirements for both autonomy and solidarity. Richard Wagner's book will be of interest to researchers in public finance, public choice, Austrian economics, political science and public policy.Trade Review'Wagner brings remarkable scholarship to bear on elucidating the emergent approach and connecting it to the vast and varied public finance literature.' -- Brian Pitt, Review of Austrian Economics'Richard Wagner's process-oriented analysis of the public sector offers an insightful alternative to standard public finance theory and a powerful critique of neoclassical welfare economics. His ideas will prove valuable to any scholar interested in understanding the economic activities of government.' -- Randall G. Holcombe, Florida State University, US'Written by one of the premier scholars of fiscal process in the world, this book takes an approach that mixes common sense and a radical redefinition of the nature of fiscal process. Rather than an incremental advance in assessing taxing and spending, Richard Wagner opens new vistas by examining the foundations of collective activity. He rejects the standard treatment of fiscal management as a corrective to market failure, and starts with the first principles of government action. I don't know when I have learned more from a single book.' -- Michael Munger, Duke University, US'This is a highly original and creative argument by a major political economist to rethink how the public economy is studied. Instead of treating the public sector as a corrective agency for problems that may arise in the private economy, Professor Wagner proposes to study the "public square" in the same way that modern economists approach the "private square". This involves eschewing equilibrium theories and emphasizing evolutionary competitive processes, examining property rights structures, stressing the role of entrepreneurship, and, in short, applying the principles of the New Institutional Economics to government. Wagner gives many convincing examples of how to apply his approach, all to good effect. This is an important book that deserves to be read widely and taken seriously. Learning the lessons that Wagner wants to teach us holds the promise of turning the study of public economics into a proper scientific explanation of government rather than an empty exercise in evaluation and intervention.'BR>- Robert D. Tollison, Clemson University, USTable of ContentsContents: Preface 1. Contrasting Architectonics for a Theory of Public Finance 2. Property, State and Public Finance 3. State and Market: A Two-Forum Societal Architecture 4. Political Entrepreneurship within the Ecology of Enterprises 5. The Economic Organization of Political Enterprises 6. Revenue Extraction: Crossing the Tax–Expenditure Divide 7. Federalism, Polycentric Polities and Open Societies 8. Fiscal Sociology and the Challenge of Societal Agriculture Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThis book provides an up-to-date study of public infrastructure in terms of the selection, procurement and delivery of projects. There is widespread acceptance that infrastructure is vital and needs increasing, yet less agreement about how it should be funded and procured. This book assesses in detail the features of various procurement options while also providing a framework for comparing their advantages and disadvantages. Drawing on international experiences and case studies, Darrin Grimsey and Mervyn Lewis consider some of the best and worst examples of public-private partnerships, new funding methods and infrastructure megaprojects. By offering a conceptual basis for infrastructure decision-making, the authors identify ways to improve infrastructure procurement processes. Focusing on urbanization as a driver of innovation in infrastructure, both the historical context and the future prospects of public infrastructure are analysed. Significantly, the book also examines China's ambitious plans to create a 'high-speed rail economy' and its Belt and Road Initiative across Asia that offers an interesting contrast to infrastructure developments in the United States and other advanced economies. Global Developments in Public Infrastructure Procurement is an essential source of reference for academics and students of economics, public sector finance and urban infrastructure.Trade Review'The trajectories of infrastructure investment in China and the West are going in different directions. That is the focus of both the first and last chapters of this important book exploring the options available for the procurement of public infrastructures. During that discussion, Grimsey and Lewis address important questions: does public investment lead or follow economic development? What are the contributions of China's megaprojects to its fast-growing economic power? What can public-private partnerships do or not do when used in the procurement of public infrastructures? How do PPPs compare to other models of infrastructure procurement? In an ever-increasingly urbanized world, there are few more important discussions than how governments can pay for the infrastructures that make urban life possible. Grimsey and Lewis have made an important contribution to that discussion.' --Richard E. Hanley, CUNY Institute for Urban Systems, New York City College of Technology, US'Today there is more public debate than ever about the state of public infrastructure and the wisdom of selecting particular options for significant investments. This timely publication by Grimsey and Lewis, building upon their earlier key contributions to this debate, is one of the very few publications to place infrastructure investment within the wider contextual financial framework in which these projects exist. The key drivers and barriers to current infrastructure investment are clearly and expertly presented and these principles are illustrated by considering the position in China and the US at opposite ends of the investment spectrum. The informed consideration of public-private partnerships, (PPPs), is welcomed. This excellent publication cuts through the emotional arguments associated with private finance for public infrastructure and demonstrates that, while not a panacea, the PPPs in certain locations, for certain projects and by certain procurement routes do have a clear role to play in infrastructure and service investment.' --Nigel Smith, University of Leeds, UKTable of ContentsContents: 1. Infrastructure provision 2. Why is infrastructure of such significance? 3. The evolution of infrastructure services 4. The promise of public private partnerships 5. Implementing a partnership agenda 6. Risk analysis in procurement 7. Comparing public infrastructure procurement models 8. Choosing amongst infrastructure procurement approaches 9. The problems of large (mega) projects 10. Funding of infrastructure 11. Conclusions Index

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Book SynopsisModelling Corporation Tax Revenue examines the revenue growth properties of corporate income taxes and how firms respond to changes in corporation tax. It provides a companion volume to the authors’ Modelling Tax Revenue Growth, which explores the revenue growth and behavioural response properties of income and consumption taxes. John Creedy and Norman Gemmell examine the corporation tax structure and the implications for revenue elasticity both for individual corporations and for all firms combined. The authors highlight how asymmetries in the treatment of positive and negative profits in the tax structure affect firms’ revenues and behaviours, and demonstrate that the examination of corporation tax revenue requires a detailed treatment of dynamic aspects. Within the book, a dynamic microsimulation model is constructed and used to examine profits and taxes over hypothetical business cycles, concentrating on the revenue elasticity and profit shifting responses to tax changes.This comprehensive yet concise book will appeal to researchers and graduate students in public finance, public economics and taxation, as well as economists in governmental departments and international organisations.Trade Review‘This book is well-written and its model carefully constructed.’ -- Linda Arch, Tax Justice Focus‘Fiscal crises around the world imply that revenue forecasting is ever more important, while globalization implies that estimating corporate tax revenues is ever more difficult. This book could thus not be more timely, as Creedy and Gemmell provide an expert analysis of both the technical issues and practical details that must be addressed in modelling corporation tax revenues. It will be invaluable to anyone involved in revenue forecasting - or anyone who wants to know what is involved in revenue forecasting.’ -- George R. Zodrow, Oxford University, UK‘Corporate taxes are an important but volatile source of revenue in leading economies like the UK. Understanding the factors that influence fluctuations in corporate tax revenues is important not only for projecting revenues, but also for designing and reforming tax systems to promote economic efficiency and keep up with the evolving nature of the corporate sector. This comprehensive analysis and modeling of corporate behavior and taxation is an important contribution toward gaining such understanding.’ -- Alan Auerbach, University of California, Berkeley, USTable of ContentsContents: Part I: Introduction 1. Introduction and Outline Part II: Corporate Profits and Tax Revenue 2. The Revenue Elasticity 3. Tax Loss Asymmetries 4. Taxes and Income Shifting Part III: A Simulation Model 5. The Distribution of Profits 6. Modelling Deductions Part IV: Corporate Tax Simulations 7. Revenue Elasticity Simulations 8. Tax Response Simulations Part V: Conclusions 9. Conclusions Appendices Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThis book brings together research from some of the world?s leading tax economists to discuss appropriate directions for tax reform in small open economies. The eminent contributors (including Altshuler, Creedy, Freebairn, Gravelle, Heady, Kalb, Sørensen and Zodrow) investigate the beneficial directions for medium-term tax reform in the light of global developments and lessons from the latest taxation research. In addressing this issue, they review recent advances in both the theoretical and empirical tax literature and reform evidence from individual countries. Topics covered include the impact of taxes on economic performance; international and corporate taxation; personal tax and welfare systems; environmental taxation; and country-specific tax reform experiences.Bringing together leading international experts to explore specific policy reforms, this book will prove essential reading for academics and researchers of public economics, fiscal policy and tax reform. It will also be warmly welcomed both by undergraduate and graduate students of public economics or the economics of taxation, as well as policymakers and government officials working in the area of tax policy.Table of ContentsContents: 1. Introduction Iris Claus, Norman Gemmell, Michelle Harding and David White PART I: THE IMPACT OF TAXES ON INVESTMENT AND PRODUCTIVITY 2. Taxes and Firm Performance: Evidence from the OECD Åsa Johansson, Christopher Heady, Jens Arnold, Bert Brys and Laura Vartia 3. Economic Effects of Investment Subsidies Jane Gravelle PART II: INTERNATIONAL, CORPORATE AND CAPITAL TAXATION 4. Lessons from the Study of Taxes and the Behaviour of US Multinational Corporations Rosanne Altshuler 5. Dual Income Taxes: A Nordic Tax System Peter Birch Sørensen 6. International Taxation and Company Tax Policy in Small Open Economies George R. Zodrow PART III: PERSONAL TAX AND WELFARE SYSTEMS 7. Personal Income Tax Structure: Theory and Policy John Creedy 8. Modelling Labour Supply Responses in Australia and New Zealand Guyonne Kalb 9. Employment Incentives for Sole Parents: Labour Market Effects of Changes to Financial Incentives and Support Jacinta Dalgety, Richard Dorsett, Steven Johnston and Philip Spier PART IV: TAXING ENVIRONMENTAL EXTERNALITIES 10. Carbon Taxes vs Tradable Permits: Efficiency and Equity Effects for a Small Open Economy John Freebairn 11. Improving Lake Water Quality Through a Nutrient Trading System: The Case of New Zealand’s Lake Rotorua Suzi Kerr and Kelly Lock PART V: LESSONS FROM TAX REFORM EPISODES 12. Australian Tax Reforms: Past and Future Greg Smith 13. Company Tax in New Zealand Matt Benge and David Holland Index

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Book SynopsisThis authoritative two-volume set brings together the most important classic and contemporary papers on taxation and tax policy, written by the world's leading scholars and practitioners of taxation.Volume I reviews the effects of taxation, optimal taxation and tax reform. Volume II presents the latest theoretical and empirical work on how taxes affect individual decisions across a range of areas, concluding with studies of the effects of taxes on firm investment and financial structure decisions.The volumes will interest those teaching upper-level and graduate level courses in taxation and tax policy, and individuals who want to be informed on the latest research in taxation.Trade Review‘This collection. . . will give to students of taxation a valuable source of critical writings to aid their studies.’ -- Citizen’s IncomeTable of ContentsContents: Volume I Acknowledgements Introduction James Alm PART I ANALYZING THE EFFECTS OF TAXATION A. Notions of Equity 1. Richard A. Musgrave (1976), ‘ET, OT and SBT’ 2. H. Peyton Young (1990), ‘Progressive Taxation and Equal Sacrifice’ 3. Louis Kaplow (1989), ‘Horizontal Equity: Measures in Search of a Principle’ B. Taxes and Income Distribution 4. Charles E. McLure, Jr. (1975), ‘General Equilibrium Incidence Analysis: The Harberger Model After Ten Years’ 5. Michael Katz and Harvey S. Rosen (1985), ‘Tax Analysis in an Oligopoly Model’ 6. Lawrence H. Summers (1983), ‘The Asset Price Approach to the Analysis of Capital Income Taxation’ 7. James Davies, France St-Hilaire and John Whalley (1984), ‘Some Calculations of Lifetime Tax Incidence’ 8. Timothy J. Besley and Harvey S. Rosen (1999), ‘Sales Taxes and Prices: An Empirical Analysis’ 9. John B. Shoven (1976), ‘The Incidence and Efficiency Effects of Taxes on Income from Capital’ 10. David M. Cutler (1988), ‘Tax Reform and the Stock Market: An Asset Price Approach’ C. Taxes and Efficiency 11. Arnold C. Harberger (1964), ‘The Measurement of Waste’ 12. Jerry A. Hausman (1981), ‘Exact Consumer’s Surplus and Deadweight Loss’ 13. Edgar K. Browning (1987), ‘On the Marginal Welfare Cost of Taxation’ 14. Charles L. Ballard, John B. Shoven and John Whalley (1985), ‘The Total Welfare Cost of the United States Tax System: A General Equilibrium Approach’ D. Taxes and Revenues 15. Don Fullerton (1982), ‘On the Possibility of an Inverse Relationship Between Tax Rates and Tax Revenues’ E. Taxes and Growth 16. Larry E. Jones, Rodolfo E. Manuelli and Peter E. Rossi (1993), ‘Optimal Taxation in Models of Endogenous Growth’ F. Taxes and Politics 17. Kevin W.S. Roberts (1977), ‘Voting Over Income Tax Schedules’ 18. Walter Hettich and Stanley L. Winer (1988), ‘Economic and Political Foundations of Tax Structure’ PART II OPTIMAL TAXATION 19. Peter A. Diamond and James A. Mirrlees (1971), ‘Optimal Taxation and Public Production II: Tax Rules’ 20. P.A. Diamond (1975), ‘A Many-Person Ramsey Tax Rule’ 21. J.A. Mirrlees (1971), ‘An Exploration in the Theory of Optimum Income Taxation’ 22. Peter A. Diamond (1998), ‘Optimal Income Taxation: An Example with a U-Shaped Pattern of Optimal Marginal Tax Rates’ 23. A.B. Atkinson and J.E. Stiglitz (1976), ‘The Design of Tax Structure: Direct Versus Indirect Taxations’ 24. N.H. Stern (1976), ‘On the Specification of Models of Optimum Income Taxation’ 25. Emmanuel Saez (2001), ‘Using Elasticities to Derive Optimal Income Tax Rates’ 26. Joel Slemrod (1990), ‘Optimal Taxation and Optimal Tax Systems’ PART III TAX REFORM 27. Martin Feldstein (1976), ‘On the Theory of Tax Reform’ 28. Alan J. Auerbach, Laurence J. Kotlikoff and Jonathan Skinner (1983), ‘The Efficiency Gains from Dynamic Tax Reform’ 29. David Altig, Alan J. Auerbach, Laurence J. Kotlikoff, Kent A. Smetters and Jan Walliser (2001), ‘Simulating Fundamental Tax Reform in the United States’ Volume II Acknowledgements An Introduction by the editors appears in Volume I PART I TAXES AND INDIVIDUAL DECISIONS A. Incentives 1. Joel Slemrod (2001), ‘A General Model of the Behavioral Response to Taxation’ B. Labour Supply 2. Jerry A. Hausman (1981), ‘Labour Supply’ 3. James P. Ziliak and Thomas J. Kniesner (1999), ‘Estimating Life Cycle Labor Supply Tax Effects’ C. Saving 4. Lawrence H. Summers (1981), ‘Capital Taxation and Accumulation in a Life Cycle Growth Model’ 5. William G. Gale and John Karl Scholz (1994), ‘IRAs and Household Saving’ 6. James M. Poterba, Steven F. Venti and David A. Wise (1995), ‘Do 401(k) Contributions Crowd Out Other Personal Saving?’ D. Portfolio Choice 7. Joseph E. Stiglitz (1969), ‘The Effects of Income, Wealth, and Capital Gains Taxation on Risk-Taking’ 8. James M. Poterba and Andrew A. Samwick (2003), ‘Taxation and Household Portfolio Composition: US Evidence from the 1980s and 1990s’ E. Capital Gains 9. Martin S. Feldstein, Joel Slemrod and Shlomo Yitzhaki (1980) ‘The Effects of Taxation on the Selling of Corporate Stock and the Realization of Capital Gains’ 10. Leonard E. Burman and William C. Randolph (1994), ‘Measuring Permanent Responses to Capital-Gains Tax Changes in Panel Data’ F. Estate Taxes 11. James Poterba (2001), ‘Estate and Gift Taxes and Incentives for Inter Vivos Giving in the United States’ G. Tax Avoidance and Evasion 12. Michael G. Allingham and Agnar Sandmo (1972), ‘Income Tax Evasion: A Theoretical Analysis’ 13. Charles T. Clotfelter (1983), ‘Tax Evasion and Tax Rates: An Analysis of Individual Returns’ 14. James Alm, Gary H. McClelland and William D. Schulze (1992), ‘Why Do People Pay Taxes?’ H. Income Reporting 15. Martin Feldstein (1995), ‘The Effect of Marginal Tax Rates on Taxable Income: A Panel Study of the 1986 Tax Reform Act’ 16. Jon Gruber and Emmanuel Saez (2002), ‘The Elasticity of Taxable Income: Evidence and Implications’ PART II TAXES AND BUSINESS DECISIONS A. Why Tax Capital Income? 17. Alan J. Auerbach (1983), ‘Taxation, Corporate Financial Policy and the Cost of Capital’ 18. Joseph E. Stiglitz (1976), ‘The Corporation Tax’ 19. Christophe Chamley (1986), ‘Optimal Taxation of Capital Income in General Equilibrium with Infinite Lives’ B. Investment 20. Robert E. Hall and Dale W. Jorgenson (1967), ‘Tax Policy and Investment Behavior’ 21. Robin W. Boadway (1987), ‘The Theory and Measurement of Effective Tax Rates’ 22. Alan J. Auerbach and Kevin Hassett (1992), ‘Tax Policy and Business Fixed Investment in the United States’ C. Financial Structure 23. George R. Zodrow (1991), ‘On the “Traditional” and “New” Views of Dividend Taxation’ 24. B. Douglas Bernheim (1991), ‘Tax Policy and the Dividend Puzzle’ 25. Raj Chetty and Emmanuel Saez (2005), ‘Dividend Taxes and Corporate Behavior: Evidence from the 2003 Dividend Tax Cut’ 26. Jeffrey K. MacKie-Mason (1990), ‘Do Taxes Affect Corporate Financing Decisions?’ 27. William M. Gentry (1994), ‘Taxes, Financial Decisions and Organizational Form: Evidence from Publicly Traded Partnerships’

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Book SynopsisThe microeconomic foundation of the theory of money has long represented a puzzle to economic theory. Why is there Money? derives the foundations of monetary theory from advanced price theory in a mathematically precise family of trading post models. It has long been recognized that the fundamental theoretical analysis of a market economy is embodied in the Arrow-Debreu-Walras mathematical general equilibrium model, with one great deficiency: the analysis cannot accommodate money and financial institutions. In this groundbreaking book, Ross M. Starr addresses this problem directly, by expanding the Arrow-Debreu model to include a multiplicity of trading opportunities, with the resultant endogenous derivation of money as the carrier of value among them. This fundamental breakthrough is achieved while maintaining the Walrasian general equilibrium price-theoretic structure, augmented primarily by the introduction of separate bid and ask prices reflecting transaction costs. The result is foundations of monetary theory consistent with and derived from modern price theory. This fascinating book will provide a stimulating and thought-provoking read for academics and postgraduate students focusing on economics, macroeconomics, macroeconomic policy and finance, money and banking. Central bankers will also find much to interest them within this book. Contents: Introduction: Why is There No Money? 1. Why is There Money? 2. An Economy Without Money 3. The Trading Post Model 4. An Elementary Linear Example: Liquidity Creates Money 5. Absence of Double Coincidence of Wants is Essential to Monetization in a Linear Economy 6. Uniqueness of Money: Scale Economy and Network Externality 7. Monetization of General Equilibrium 8. Government-Issued Fiat Money 9. Efficient Structure of Exchange 10. Microfoundations of Jevons's Double Coincidence Condition 11. Commodity Money Equilibrium in a Convex Trading Post Economy 12. Efficiency of Commodity Money Equilibrium 13. Alternative Models 14. Conclusion and a Research Agenda Bibliography IndexTrade Review‘Starr’s brilliant little volume is the latest of a long line of attempts to integrate money and price (general equilibrium) theory. Within 160 pages and 14 dense chapters, the author synthesizes forty years of careful and painstaking research. He sets them against the background not only of the tradition inaugurated by Walras and carried on by Pareto, Hicks, Patinkin, Samuelson, Clower, Hahn, Kyotaki and Wright (to name but a few) but also of the no-less famous conflict between trust and authority at the origin of money (Frankel, 1977). Hence, and before discussing Starr’s trading post model, it seems not out of place to recall briefly the analytical history of these two central riddles in monetary theory.’ -- > Œconomia - History/Methodology/Philosophy‘This book makes compelling reading for anyone interested in exploring the foundations of monetary theory from a rigorous general equilibrium perspective.’ -- Gabriele Camera, Purdue University, US‘Introducing the Arrow-Debreu-Starr model of monetary general equilibrium, Professor Starr provides the best defense ever made for the relevance of the Walrasian model to the pure theory of money. While most monetary theorists ventured to the overlapping generations model and then to the search model, only to create recently a hybrid search-Walrasian model, Starr presents the culmination of a patient, career-long effort to integrate money into the basic Walrasian model, with realistic taxation critically helping the government’s money to dominate.’ -- Dror Goldberg, Bar Ilan University, IsraelTable of ContentsContents: Introduction: Why is There No Money? 1. Why is There Money? 2. An Economy Without Money 3. The Trading Post Model 4. An Elementary Linear Example: Liquidity Creates Money 5. Absence of Double Coincidence of Wants is Essential to Monetization in a Linear Economy 6. Uniqueness of Money: Scale Economy and Network Externality 7. Monetization of General Equilibrium 8. Government-Issued Fiat Money 9. Efficient Structure of Exchange 10. Microfoundations of Jevons’s Double Coincidence Condition 11. Commodity Money Equilibrium in a Convex Trading Post Economy 12. Efficiency of Commodity Money Equilibrium 13. Alternative Models 14. Conclusion and a Research Agenda Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThis insightful book focuses on the role of fiscal policy in common markets, especially in the context of the supranational constructs in the Gulf Cooperation Council, comprising Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman. It draws on the experience of the EU and the importance of VAT, and reflects on the other main common market in Central America. Although oil windfalls have opened a window of opportunity for the Gulf States, at the same time they have created numerous problems. In particular, the uncertainty associated with periods of boom and bust in the oil market has made the formulation and implementation of sound fiscal policies a formidable task. In this study, the distinguished authors present the background to current fiscal reforms and address the critical challenges facing the Gulf States including the choice between consumption and saving (or current needs and future requirements); intra-generational equity issues; the pro-cyclicality of fiscal policy; fiscal sustainability and the prudent management of revenues from finite oil reserves. They examine the case for VAT to substantially replace customs duties, a significant source of non-oil revenue which would be lost as a result of free trade agreements between the GCC and key trading partners. They also demonstrate how an agreed design for VAT would assist in furthering economic integration, and enhance trade and exports. If properly sequenced, VAT would have a negligible impact on both inflation and the poor, and would be progressive in relation to the customs duties replaced.This highly topical book will be of great interest to academics specializing in public sector economics and public finance, and to national and international policymakers involved in fiscal reform.Table of ContentsContents: Introduction 1. Design of a VAT for the GCC Common Market Ehtisham Ahmad PART I: WHAT DOES INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE HAVE TO OFFER? 2. The Value Added Tax in the Context of the Proposed GCC Common Market Vito Tanzi 3. Central and Subnational VATs in Federal Countries Richard M. Bird 4. The Design of a VAT for Multi-Government Jurisdictions: Lessons from Canada Robin Boadway 5. The European VAT and the Common Market Framework: Lessons for the GCC Christophe Waerzeggers 6. The VAT in Common Markets: Lessons from Central America Carlos Silvani 7. VAT, Revenue Sharing, and Intergovernmental Transfer Design: The Australian Experience Bob Searle PART II: INTRODUCING THE VAT IN THE GCC AND UAE 8. Setting a VAT Registration Threshold: GCC Considerations and Evidence from Dubai Ehtisham Ahmad and Giorgio Brosio 9. A VAT in the UAE: Distributional Consequences and Social Sectors Ehtisham Ahmad and Giorgio Brosio 10. Treatment of Financial Services under a UAE VAT Satya Poddar and Jayanta Kalita 11. Institutions, Political Economy, and Timing of a VAT: Options for Dubai and the UAE Ehtisham Ahmad Index

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Book SynopsisThe core concern of this book is the potential use of taxation and related measures to foster climate-helpful, large-scale change within East Asia. The contributing authors examine key cases such as how Greater China, for instance, confronts severe environmental problems which are a direct product of several decades of remarkable economic growth. The detailed analysis in this book identifies a range of green taxation guidelines for East Asia as it seeks to drive down striking levels of environmental degradation - and address the climate change challenge.Addressing an important need in the public policy debate, this book will appeal to academics, students, government policy makers, regulators and practitioners in environmental law, taxation law and policy, as well as, comparative environmental law and comparative taxation law and policy. Public policy commentators and journalists with an interest in the above areas will also find this book worthwhile and informative.Contributors include: A. Cockfield, M. Derlen, S. Griffiths, W. Gumley, J. Lindholm, J. Milne, S. Phua, N. Stoianoff, J. Vanderwolk, Y. XuTrade Review'The broad sweep of 'green taxation' - pollution, carbon, resource and land taxes, and tax incentives for environmental goals - makes it complex to analyse. Green Taxation in East Asia is a timely and valuable comparative contribution to an expanding literature. Its scholarly country studies show how green taxes aim to modify behaviour, correct externalities, regulate, or raise revenue. As environmental policy and tax policy move closer together, green taxes become feasible, but are always, as the editors say, ''shaped by local political, economic and social circumstances''.' - Miranda Stewart, University of Melbourne, Australia 'In today's world, environmental challenges grow apace and the impact of taxation measures on these will prove critical. Green Taxation in East Asia addresses those challenges. It draws on world-wide experiences (including those from North America and the EU) by analysing and critiquing how green taxation can inform, develop and implement environmental policies in East Asia (and beyond). This is not a sterile tax debate. The authors of this work, all leading scholars in their respective jurisdictions, combine economic, social and local political perspectives on what should work and what should not. The debate is too important to ignore in a world where Kyoto seems a long way from Washington, the fragrant harbour is no longer, and even in the lands down-under, long white clouds and pristine beaches are no longer taken for granted. Taxation is not a panacea for curing environmental ills; but it is, as this book admirably shows, part of the answer.' - Andrew Halkyard, University of Hong Kong 'The right of East Asia to grow its economy and provide its citizens with living standards enjoyed elsewhere is as undeniable as the risk to the global environment from this growth. A volume that contrasts current initiatives in China and Hong Kong to reduce that risk with lessons from international experience presented by leading international experts from four continents, is more than just timely; it can make a key contribution to the development of contemporary thinking on taxation and the environment. This work fits the bill perfectly.'- Rick Krever, Monash University, Australia 'The authors of the jurisdictional chapters in this book are, of necessity, more focussed on analyzing the interaction, today between taxation (and related fiscal measures) and the environment. From these studies it is clear that a great deal is amiss in the way this interface works at present across all the jurisdictions under review. But this research also shows positive steps being taken - and great scope for further, positive tax policy development. We can see from this research how smart policy innovation can start right now - and also how it can build better foundations for the introduction of more comprehensive, globally effective policy frameworks such as those advanced by Hansen and Sandor. Time is of the essence. The scholarship in this volume shows that lawyers and tax experts are engaged in finding solutions. Can green taxation make a difference? The answer is a resounding ''yes''.' --- From the foreword by Christine LohTable of ContentsContents: Preface Foreword Christine Loh 1. Conspectus Richard Cullen and Yan Xu 2. Environmental Taxation in China: The Case of Transport Fuel Taxation Yan Xu 3. Green Tax Measures for Hong Kong: A Policy Proposal Jefferson VanderWolk 4. Land Transportation in Singapore: Tax and Regulatory Policies to Promote Sustainable Development Stephen L.H. Phua 5. Environmental Taxation in the United States: Retrospective and Prospective Janet E. Milne 6. Optimal Climate Change Tax Policy for Small Open Economies Arthur J. Cockfield 7. Not Enough Room for Optimal Choices? The European Legal Framework for Green Taxes Mattias Derlén and Johan Lindholm 8. Behavior Modifying Taxes, Emissions Trading and Tax Expenditure Reform: Market-based Responses to Climate Change in Australia Wayne Gumley and Natalie Stoianoff 9. Green Taxation: The New Zealand Story Shelley Griffiths 10. Concluding Thoughts: A Greener Future? Jefferson VanderWolk Index

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Book SynopsisThis book makes a unique contribution in advancing understanding of the fiscal condition and growth potential of the New Member States of the European Union. It provides new data, policy evaluation, and offers national and regional perspectives. The core research questions are the effect of public investment in the context of macroeconomic disequilibrium and how it is possible to finance capital accumulation in the present and future conditions of mounting public sector debt. The contributors reveal that there is now a convincing case for public investment as an essential driver of convergence and growth in Europe. However, a new international and inter-generational fiscal pact to frame a more optimistic view of the role of government is needed. This book explores how public investment matters for growth, how fiscal conditions may support investment, and the role EU regional policy can have in terms of structural change and investment needs. Public Investment, Growth and Fiscal Constraints provides new data analyses on the EU New Member States in Central and Eastern Europe making it an essential tool for academics, students and practitioners interested in public finance and European Economics. The structural and public finance issues in these former transition economies raised in this book will also strongly appeal to policymakers, officials and consultants. The book is based on an independent research project of the University of Milan, supported by the European Investment Bank.Trade Review‘This is a valuable work that makes a strong case for public investment as a growth instrument. It is rich in theoretical and empirical analyses, making it relevant for practitioners as well as policy makers’. -- Anil Duman, Eastern Economic JournalTable of ContentsContents: Introduction: Public Investment, Growth and Fiscal Constraints in the EU Massimo Florio PART I: PUBLIC INVESTMENT AND GROWTH: CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK 1. Budget Deficits, Public Debt and the Level of Public Investment Malcolm Sawyer 2. Recent Advances in Public Investment, Fiscal Policy and Growth Chiara Del Bo 3. Public Investment under Disequilibrium: A Post Keynesian Viewpoint Massimo Cingolani PART II: PUBLIC INVESTMENT AND FISCAL CONDITIONS IN THE EU NEW MEMBER STATES 4. Patterns and Trends of Public Investment in the New Member States of the European Union Ángel Catalina Rubianes 5. EU New Member States: Public Sector Accounts and Convergence Criteria Giuseppe Bognetti and Giorgio Ragazzi 6. Public Investment and Growth in the EU New Member States: An Overview Jan Hanousek and Evžen Kočenda PART III: INVESTMENT, STRUCTURAL CHANGE AND REGIONAL POLICY 7. Structural Change in New Member States (1995–2005): Shift–Share Analysis of Productivity Growth and its Determinants Aleksandra Parteka 8. Structural Funds Business Support and Employment Growth in Manufacturing: Perspectives for the New Member States Luigi Moretti 9. Infrastructure Investment Opportunities in the EU New Member States: The Role of Regional Policies Emanuela Sirtori and Silvia Vignetti Index

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Book Synopsis`Some think that decentralization has not gone "far enough" to be considered successful; others argue that it has already "failed". As the studies of decentralization in 15 developing countries in this volume clearly show, every case is different, and persuasive generalizations are hard to find. Fortunately, the introductory chapter usefully pulls this diverse reality together to highlight some key obstacles to successful decentralization and to suggest some approaches that might - provided that those in power are sufficiently supportive - lead to better outcomes in the future.' - Richard M. Bird, University of Toronto, Canada This insightful study examines the decentralization experiences from 15 countries in different regions of the world. All of these countries have actively attempted to decentralize, or continue to do so, and have faced obstacles serious enough to either derail or significantly delay their decentralization objectives. Decentralization in Developing Countries evaluates the main obstacles to the decentralization process. The contributors expertly discuss the flaws in the decentralization design, resistance from those holding traditional or central power and, uniquely, weak central governments. They then extract lessons for policymakers, regarding what may be done and what should ideally be avoided. This important book focuses on how to implement decentralization plans as whole complete processes, rather than examining individual aspects of decentralization. It will therefore prove invaluable for academics and researchers of development economics, public finance and in particular decentralization. Employees of various bodies, including DFID, UNDP, the World Bank, as well as other development banks and bilateral aid organizations, will also find it an informative resource.Trade Review‘Some think that decentralization has not gone “far enough” to be considered successful; others argue that it has already “failed”. As the studies of decentralization in 15 developing countries in this volume clearly show, every case is different, and persuasive generalizations are hard to find. Fortunately, the introductory chapter usefully pulls this diverse reality together to highlight some key obstacles to successful decentralization and to suggest some approaches that might – provided that those in power are sufficiently supportive – lead to better outcomes in the future.’ -- Richard M. Bird, University of Toronto, CanadaTable of ContentsContents: 1. An Overview of the Main Obstacles to Decentralization Jorge Martinez-Vazquez and François Vaillancourt 2. Conceptual Problems in the Assignment of Functions in SEE: The Case of Albania Bernard Dafflon 3. Decentralization in the Post-Conflict African Environment: Sierra Leone and Southern Sudan Bob Searle 4. Challenge to Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations in Pakistan: The Revenue Assignment Dimension Roy Bahl, Musharraf Cyan and Sally Wallace 5. Constraints to Effective Fiscal Decentralization in Peru Ehtisham Ahmad and Mercedes García-Escribano 6. Reining in Provincial Fiscal ‘Owners’: Decentralization in Lao PDR Juan Luis Gomez, Jorge Martinez-Vazquez and Cristian Sepúlveda 7. Decentralization in Bangladesh: Change has been Elusive William F. Fox and Balakrishna Menon 8. The Political-Economy of Decentralization in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) Kai Kaiser, Jean Mabi Mulumba and Tony Verheijen 9. Decentralization in Burkina Faso: The Slow March Towards Devolution Eric Champagne and Ben Mamadou Ouegraogo 10. Decentralization in Cambodia: Consolidating Central Power or Building Accountability from Below? Paul Smoke and Joanne Morrison 11. Decentralization in Madagascar: A String of Unfinished Races François Vaillancourt 12. Decentralizing Egypt: Not Just Another Economic Reform Jorge Martinez-Vazquez and Andrey Timofeev 13. Obstacles to Decentralization in Ethiopia: Political Controls versus Discretion and Accountability Serdar Yilmaz and Varsha Venugopal 14. Tanzania’s Fiscal Arrangements: Obstacles to Fiscal Decentralization or Structures of Union-Preserving Federalism? Luc Noiset and Mark Rider 15. The Difficult Road to Local Autonomy in Yemen: Decentralization Reforms between Political Rationale and Bureaucratic Resistances in a Multi-party Democracy of the Arabian Peninsula Leonardo G. Romeo and Mohamed El Mensi 16. Sharing Petroleum Resources in Iraq: Obstacle or Foundation to Decentralization Grant Bishop and Anwar Shah Index

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Book SynopsisThese two volumes bring together key articles in the field of modern public finance, a field which has seen a major revival of interest in the past 20 years. The articles reprinted are among those which have shaped its recent development, and include contributions by no fewer than seven Nobel Prize-winners.A.B. Atkinson - widely recognized as a leading authority in the field - has carefully selected a representative coverage of the most important articles and papers and has also included readings which help relate the subject to other areas of economics. The result is a reference collection which will be an essential companion for the specialist and non-specialist alike.Table of ContentsContents: Volume I Part I: Taxation and the Household G. Burtless and J.A. Hausman (1978), 'The Effect of Taxation on Labour Supply: Evaluating the Gary Negative Income Tax Experiment' M. Feldstein (1976), 'Social Security and Saving: The Extended Life Cycle Theory' J. Mossin (1968), 'Taxation and Risk-Taking: An Expected Utility Approach' M.G. Allingham and A. Sandmo (1972), 'Income Tax Evasion: A Theoretical Analysis' Part II: Taxation and the Firm P.A. Samuelson (1964), 'Tax Deductibility of Economic Depreciation to Insure Variant Valuations' R.E. Hall and D.W. Jorgenson (1967), 'Tax Policy and Investment Behavior' J.E. Stiglitz (1973), 'Taxation, Corporate Financial Policy, and the Cost of Capital' M.H. Miller (1977), 'Debt and Taxes' Part III: Overall Incidence of Taxation A.R. Prest (1955), 'Statistical Calculations of Tax Burdens' A.C. Harberger (1962), 'The Incidence of the Corporation Income Tax' J.B. Shoven and J. Whalley (1972), 'A General Equilibrium Calculation of the Effects of Differential Taxation of Income from Capital in the U.S.' L.H. Summers (1981), 'Capital Taxation and Accumulation in a Life Cycle Growth Model' J. Davies, F. St-Hilaire and J. Whalley (1984), 'Some Calculations of Lifetime Tax Incidence' Part IV: Public Goods P.A. Samuelson (1954), 'The Pure Theory of Public Expenditure' L. Johansen (1963), 'Some Notes on the Lindahl Theory of Determination of Public Expenditures' T.N. Tideman and G. Tullock (1976), 'A New and Superior Process for Making Social Choices' A.B. Atkinson and N.H. Stern (1974), 'Pigou, Taxation and Public Goods' K.J. Arrow (1971), 'A Utilitarian Approach to the Concept of Equality in Public Expenditures' Part V: Local Public Spending C.M. Tiebout (1956), 'A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures' T.F. Bewley (1981), 'A Critique of Tiebout's Theory of Local Public Expenditures' W.E. Oates (1969), 'The Effects of Property Taxes and Local Public Spending on Property Values: An Empirical Study of Tax Capitalization and the Tiebout Hypothesis' P. Mieszkowski (1972), 'The Property Tax: An Excise Tax or a Profits Tax' Name Index. Volume II Part I: Optimal Taxation P.A. Samuelson (1986), 'Theory of Optimal Taxation' P.A. Diamond and J.A. Mirrlees (1971), 'Optimal Taxation and Public Production I: Production Efficiency and II: Tax Rules' J.A. Mirrlees (1971), 'An Exploration in the Theory of Optimum Income Taxation' A.B. Atkinson and J.E. Stiglitz (1976), 'The Design of Tax Structure: Direct Versus Indirect Taxation' R.A. Musgrave (1976), 'ET, OT and SBT' Part II: Theory of Tax Reform M. Feldstein (1976), 'On the Theory of Tax Reform' W.J. Corlett and D.C. Hague (1953), 'Complimentarity and the Excess Burden of Taxation' G. Debreu (1954), 'A Classical Tax-Subsidy Problem' M.A. King (1983), 'Welfare Analysis of Tax Reforms Using Household Data' R. Guesnerie and K. Roberts (1984), 'Effective Policy Tools and Quantity Controls' Part III: The National Debt J. Tobin (1965), 'The Burden of the Public Debt: A Review Article' P.A. Diamond (1965), 'National Debt in a Neoclassical Growth Model' R.J. Barro (1974), 'Are Government Bonds Net Wealth?' Part IV: Macroeconomic Fiscal Policy A.S. Blinder and R.M. Solow (1989) , 'Does Fiscal Policy Matter?' A. Dixit (1976), 'Public Finance in a Keynesian Temporary Equilibrium' E.S. Phelps (1973), 'Inflation in the Theory of Public Finance' F.E. Kydland and E.C. Prescott (1977), 'Rules Rather than Discretion: The Inconsistency of Optimal Plans' Part V: Public Choice J.M. Buchanan (1987), 'The Constitution of Economic Policy' G. Brennan and J.M. Buchanan (1977), 'Towards a Tax Constitution for Leviathan' W.D. Nordhaus (1975), 'The Political Business Cycle' J.N. Bhagwati (1982), 'Directly Unproductive, Profit-Seeking (DUP) Activities' D.K. Foley (1978), 'State Expenditure from a Marxist Perspective' Name Index.

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