Principles Of Public Finance

Substance of lectures on the theory of public finance delivered at the London School of Economics.

This textbook equips instructors and students with an overview of the existing literature so that the latter can attain an overall understanding of macroeconomic and microeconomic public finance. The literature on public finance has grown dramatically with theoretical studies and empirical analysis, and much of the focus has been on macroeconomic effects of public services. The standard textbook offerings, however, are mainly restricted to microeconomic topics of public finance. This text intends to fill this gap by presenting a theoretical-based, comprehensive explanation of public finance. Particular emphasis is directed at developing tools that can be applied theoretically and empirically to clarify essential economic concerns in the current public sector in advanced countries, including Japan. Such concerns include the macroeconomic effect of fiscal policy, the dependence on bonds for covering government deficits, and social security reform. The main text explains the standard concepts of public finance, and the appendix offers various advanced topics. The material will facilitate an understanding of how to investigate changes in the public sector, interpret results, and basically do research on fiscal policy. The textbook will be of value to a broad range of course offerings, including those generally focused on fiscal policy, on social security reform and on tax reform.

The 1971 edition of this famous textbook includes recent material to the general survey on the theory of taxation, other forms of public revenue, public expenditure and public debts, and chapters on modern theories of budgetary policy and the

Substance of lectures on the theory of public finance delivered at the London School of Economics.

In this volume, based on a week-long symposium at the University of Munich's Center for Economic Studies, two leading scholars of governmental economics debate their divergent perspectives on the role of government and its fiscal functions. James M. Buchanan, who was influential in developing the research program in public choice, concentrates on the imperfections of the political process and stresses the need for rules to restrain governmental interference. Richard A. Musgrave, a founder of modern public finance, points to market failures and inequities that call for corrective public policies. They apply their differing economic and political philosophies to a variety of key issues. Each presentation is followed by a response and general discussion.

This book discusses the principles of public finance, including public expenditure, the canons of taxation, the measurement of taxable capacity, the distribution of central, provincial, and local revenues, the distribution of the burden of taxation, the shifting and incidence of taxation, the taxation of land, the history of the taxation of income, general principles of the taxation of income, death duties or inheritance taxes, other direct taxes and the taxation of surplus, indirect taxation, customs duties, the burden of taxation, local taxation in various countries, public debts, and financial administration.

The second edition of Public Finance and Public Policy retains the first edition's themes of investigation of responsibilities and limitations of government. The present edition has been rewritten and restructured. Public choice and political economy concepts and political and bureaucratic principal-agent problems are introduced at the beginning for application to later topics. Fairness, envy, hyperbolic discounting, and other concepts of behavioral economics are integrated throughout. The consequences of asymmetric information and the tradeoff between efficiency and ex-post equality are recurring themes. Key themes investigated are markets and governments, institutions and governance, public goods, public finance for public goods, market corrections (externalities and paternalist public policies), voting, social justice, entitlements and equality of opportunity, choice of taxation, and the need for government. The purpose of the book is to provide an accessible introduction to the use of public finance and public policy to improve on market outcomes.

This book was prepared mainly for specialists on the assumption that it would provide the background to an important neglected field of discussion in public finance. Since it was first published in 1958, the theory of public goods and its implications for public policy have become incorporated in the main body of the economic analysis of public finance in the literature. A glance at the footnotes of some of the standard textbooks on public finance indicates that this assembly of articles has not been in vain. Probably the most influential part of this collection has been the papers concerned with the theory of public expenditure, which contains two closely related elements. The first is as a part of welfare economics: under what conditions can Pareto optimality be achieved in an economic system in which some goods supplied are indivisible? The other strand of thought is concerned with the positive theory of the public sector: how can economic analysis be used in order to explain how the size and composition of the budget is actually determined?

The book seeks to cover most aspects of the subject: public goods, externalities, social justice and redistribution, taxation and fiscal federalism and thus tries to provide a solid foundation on which critical thinking about the responsibilities and limitations of government can be based. Each chapter strives to study whether private sector could undertake the relevant activities in a more efficient and equitable way and thus if government involvement is really needed. Chapters conclude with selective, annotated reading list and questions for discussion. The reading lists contain anappropriate mixture of classical readings and the latest research findings. By drawing on insights from normative public finance, public choice, and new political economy, the book aims to give a boost to undergraduate and graduate teaching in public finance in an engaging, clear, and well-organized fashion. A significant contribution of the book is to strike a fine balancebetween normative and positive aspects of public finance.The book with be also be useful for students appearing for NET and competitive examinations such as IES and IAS.