Public Finance in Theory and Practice is the most accessible introduction to public finance and public economics available and is any student's first stop for the key tenets of the field including public goods and externalities, taxation, provision for health and education and the analysis of government's role in the economy. With the accession to power in the United States of an administration promising to take a more active role in the economy, now is the time to take stock of how far this process should proceed. Ulbrich's book is the perfect guide to the changing world of public finance.

The events of the last decade have challenged the contemporary neo-classical synthesis in all branches of economics, but particularly public finance. The most notable feature of the 2nd edition of Public Finance in Theory and Practice is the infusion of behavioral economics throughout the text, with an end of chapter question inviting the student to apply a behavioral lens to some question or issue. There continues to be an emphasis on the importance of the institutional context, drawing on examples from many countries and emphasizing the role of lower level governments in a federal system. The first five chapters establish this context by reviewing the role of government in a market system, the description of government structure from an economic perspective, the basic data about revenue and expenditures, the elements of public choice, and the distributional role of government. The book has been substantially reorganized to put more emphasis on public expenditure. Expanded treatment of public goods includes common property resources and congestible or club goods. Expanded discussion of budgeting and cost-benefit analysis provides some practical application of the theory. Updated discussions of social security, public education and health care address these three major contemporary public finance issues. The traditional emphasis on revenue (taxes, fees and grants) has been retained but follows rather than precedes the discussion of expenditures.

Useful for Graduate and P.G. Students of Economics and Candidates Appearing for Competitive Examinations. It examines every major problem of the economy of public sector first in the context of the developed countries of the western world and then their relevence is looked into from the angle of the developing countries.

Stefano Gatti describes the theory that underpins this cutting-edge industry, and then provides illustrations and examples from actual practice to illustrate that theory.

There is a long-standing difference amongst public economists between those who think that collective choice must be formally acknowledged, and those who derive their policy recommendations from a social planning framework in which politics plays no role. The purpose of this book is to contribute to a meaningful dialogue between these two groups, in the belief that the future of both political economy and of normative public finance lies somewhere between the two approaches. Some of the specific questions addressed in the book include: does public finance need political economy? Should collective choice play a role in the standard of reference used in normative public finance? What is a 'failure' in a non-market or policy process? And what have we learned about the theory and practice of public finance from three decades of empirical research on public choice? The book also provides a practitioner's view of the political economy of redistribution.

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.