Drawing on a series of colorful examples from the ancient world, he illustrates some of the many ways in which actions can in fact be understood as public or private."--BOOK JACKET.

The public good is not merely an economic idea of goods and services, but a place where thoughtful debate and examination of the polis can occur. In differentiating the university from corporations and other private sector businesses, Governance and the Public Good provides a framework for discussing the trend toward politicized and privatized postsecondary institutions while acknowledging the parallel demands of accountability and autonomy placed on sites of higher learning. If one accepts the notion of higher education as a public good, does this affect how one thinks about the governance of America's colleges and universities? Contributors to this book explore the role of the contemporary university, its relationship to the public good beyond a simple obligation to educate for jobs, and the subsequent impact on how institutions of higher education are and should be governed.

Who and what a government taxes, and how the government spends the money collected, are questions of primary concern to governments large and small, national and local. When public revenues pay for high-quality infrastructure and social services, citizens thrive and crises are averted. When public revenues are inadequate to provide those goods, inequality thrives and communities can verge into unrest—as evidenced by the riots during Greece’s financial meltdown and by the needless loss of life in Haiti’s collapse in the wake of the earthquake. In The Public Good and the Brazilian State, Anne G. Hanley assembles an economic history of public revenues as they developed in nineteenth-century Brazil. Specifically, Hanley investigates the financial life of the municipality—a district comparable to the county in the United States—to understand how the local state organized and prioritized the provision of public services, what revenues paid for those services, and what happened when the revenues collected failed to satisfy local needs. Through detailed analyses of municipal ordinances, mayoral reports, citizen complaints, and financial documents, Hanley sheds light on the evolution of public finance and its effect on the early economic development of Brazilian society. This deeply researched book offers valuable insights for anyone seeking to better understand how municipal finance informs histories of inequality and underdevelopment.

Why Democracy Needs Public Goods provides arguments for a new theoretical perspective in favor of public goods. Kallhoff details the benefits of public goods for any democratic state: they contribute to social inclusion, help generate the public forum, and foster national identity. These arguments are supplemented by reconsidering major counter-arguments against this approach, both from political theory and from theories on public finance. Political philosophers, political theorists, and political economists will benefit most from this perspective.

In a time of global political ferment, established ideas are coming under renewed scrutiny. Chief among them is one of the dominant notions of our era: that we should entrust markets with many of the tasks previously carried out by government. In this wide-ranging book, Max Rashbrooke goes beyond anecdote and partisanship, delving deep into the latest research about the sweeping changes made to the public services that shape our collective lives. What he unearths is startling: it challenges established thinking on the effectiveness of market-based reforms and charts a new form of ‘deep’ democracy for the twenty-first century. Refreshing and far-sighted, this stimulating book offers New Zealanders a new way of thinking about government and how it can navigate the turbulent world ahead. The market is often not the solution to our problems. Markets have often been the problem. Max Rashbrooke makes the convincing case for models of government that work better, as well as those to be more wary of. Greater democracy can bring with it greater equality - but, Rashbrooke warns, democracy itself is imperilled by our current levels of inequality. Fast paced, globally informed and wittily written. – Professor Danny Dorling, Oxford University This book provides a wide range of excellent evidence-based arguments that help counter the oft-dominant small-government ideology of our times. Its defence of democracy, government and voter competence is a story that needs to be told more. – Laura O'Connell Rapira, Director of ActionStation

This book provides an expansive review of the public goods theme and highlights the inherent linkage between sustainable development and corporate responsibility for improving the current and future welfare of communities both at home and abroad. The main proposition here is that sustainable development is focused on preserving and maintaining public goods. Consequently, whoever uses public goods is liable for their preservation, their maintenance, and, where they are underdeveloped, for their expansion. Successful delivery, both now and in the future, depends on a positive relationship of the public sector with the private sector. This book will serve to stimulate discussions of scholars and policy makers in the field of sustainable development with business leaders, and will close the gap between the public and the private sectors by building a common understanding and common methodologies for implementing and measuring sustainable development in the macro- and the micro-spheres.

This book presents an updated and expanded discussion of theoretical treatment of externalities (i.e. uncompensated interdependencies), public goods, and club goods.