Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review"...a detailed introduction to theoretical work on many of the core issues in contemporary public economics. Careful and comprehensive, it will provide readers with an ideal springboard to further research." --James M. Poterba, Mitsui Professor of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA "... outstanding in the breadth of its coverage, in the quality of exposition, and in the balance between theory and policy... especially good at melding newer approaches to the normative study of the public sector with traditional ones." --Robin Boadway, Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada "I have hoped for years that Richard Tresch would revise his Public Finance text. This volume is well worth the wait. It is comprehensive, up-to-date, and very clearly written. It is a natural reading for a graduate course in public finance. It will also serve as a fine reference for specialists in the field." --Harvey Rosen, Department of Economics, Princeton University, Princeton, USA
Table of ContentsPart I: Introduction: The Content and Methodology of Public Sector Theory 1. Introduction to Normative Public Sector Theory 2. A General Equilibrium Model for Public Sector Analysis 3. First-Best and Second-Best Analysis and the Political Economy of Public Sector Economics Part II: The Theory of Public Expenditures and Taxation—First-Best Analysis 4. The Social Welfare Function in Policy Analysis 5. The Problem of Externalities--An Overview 6. Consumption Externalities 7. Production Externalities 8. Global Warming: An Application of Externality Theory 9. The Theory of Decreasing Cost Production 10. The First-Best Theory of Taxation 11. Applying First-Best Principles of Taxation—What to Tax and How Part III: The Theory of Public Expenditures and Taxation: Second-Best Analysis 12. Introduction to Second-Best Analysis 13. The Second-Best Theory of Taxation in One-Consumer Economies with Linear Production Technology 14. The Second-Best Theory of Taxation with General Production Technologies and Many Consumers 15. Taxation Under Asymmetric Information 16. The Theory and Measurement of Tax Incidence 17. Expenditure Incidence and Economy-Wide Incidence Studies 18. The Second-Best Theory of Public Expenditures: Overview 19. Transfer Payments and Private Information 20. Social Insurance: Medical Care 21. Social Insurance: Social Security 22. Externalities in a Second-Best Environment 23. Decreasing Costs and the Theory of the Second-Best—The Boiteux Problem 24. General Production Rules in a Second-Best Environment 25. Behavioral Public Sector Economics Part IV: Fiscal Federalism and International Public Finance 26. Optimal Federalism: Sorting the Functions of Government Within the Fiscal Hierarchy 27. Optimal Federalism: The Sorting of People within the Fiscal Hierarchy 28. The Role of Grants-in-Aid in a Federalist System of Governments 29. International Public Finance
