Public finance is an important branch of economics. Over the years it has become more important, more controversial, and more complex. This book aims to highlight to both economists and policymakers the need for simplicity in policies and to inform students of public finance and public policy about this growing problem.

A critical examination of economics' past and future, and how it needs to change, by one of the most eminent political economists of our time The dominant view in economics is that money and government should play only minor roles in economic life. Economic outcomes, it is claimed, are best left to the "invisible hand" of the market. Yet these claims remain staunchly unsettled. The view taken in this important new book is that the omnipresence of uncertainty makes money and government essential features of any market economy. Since Adam Smith, classical economics has espoused non-intervention in markets. The Great Depression brought Keynesian economics to the fore; but stagflation in the 1970s brought a return to small-state orthodoxy. The 2008 global financial crash should have brought a reevaluation of that stance; instead the response has been punishing austerity and anemic recovery. This book aims to reintroduce Keynes’s central insights to a new generation of economists, and embolden them to return money and government to the starring roles in the economic drama that they deserve.

Drawing together leading scholars, the book provides a revealing new map of the US political economy in cross-national perspective.

After two generations of emphasis on governmental inefficiency and the need for deregulation, we now see growing interest in the possibility of constructive governance, alongside public calls for new, smarter regulation. Yet there is a real danger that regulatory reforms will be rooted in outdated ideas. As the financial crisis has shown, neither traditional market failure models nor public choice theory, by themselves, sufficiently inform or explain our current regulatory challenges. Regulatory studies, long neglected in an atmosphere focused on deregulatory work, is in critical need of new models and theories that can guide effective policy-making. This interdisciplinary volume points the way toward the modernization of regulatory theory. Its essays by leading scholars move past predominant approaches, integrating the latest research about the interplay between human behavior, societal needs, and regulatory institutions. The book concludes by setting out a potential research agenda for the social sciences.

In this book he systematically studies the underground economy to examine how certain types of economic analysis can be applied to tax evaders.

The ability to connect theoretical macroeconomics to the analysis of the economic and political performance of a given country is an essential skill for global investors. In Country Analysis: Understanding Economic and Political Performance, David M. Currie takes a unique analytical approach to the subject, clearly demonstrating the relationship between theory and application in investing practices. This valuable book shows how to interpret country performance and provides the practising investor with sufficient background on economic principles to be able to understand and interpret country summaries that appear in business periodicals and other media. It covers key topics such as the Washington Consensus and the three major categories of economic decisions - fiscal policy, monetary policy and trade policy. It includes an important chapter on the political aspect of government performance, to give the reader an understanding of economic decisions in their true context. Country Analysis explains the reasoning behind the criteria used in evaluating country risk and economic performance, without the need for a sophisticated understanding of economics or mathematics. Each chapter includes a series of text boxes that include real-life examples from business periodicals to reinforce what is discussed and enable readers to practice identifying and interpreting relevant information. Practitioners making investment decisions in global markets, as well as students in MBA and other courses, will find this immensely practical book a valuable aid to critical decision making.