Public Finance remains the premier textbook on the normative theory of government policy, with the third edition propelling into the twenty-first century its examination of what government ought to be doing instead of what it is doing.
The welfare aspects of public economics receive extensively renewed examination in this third edition. With four new chapters and other significant revisions, it presents detailed and comprehensive coverage of theoretical literature, empirical work, environmental issues, social insurance, behavioral economics, and international tax issues. With increased emphasis on the European Union, it is rigid enough for use by PhDs while being accessible to students less well trained in math.
Part I: Introduction: The Content and Methodology of Public Sector Theory
Chapter 1: Introduction to Normative Public Sector Theory
Chapter 2: A General Equilibrium Model for Public Sector Analysis
Chapter 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
Chapter 4: The Social Welfare Function in Policy Analysis
Chapter 5: The Problem of Externalities--An Overview
Chapter 6: Consumption Externalities
Chapter 7: Production Externalities
Chapter 8: Global Warming: An Application of Externality Theory
Chapter 9: The Theory of Decreasing Cost Production
Chapter 10: The First-Best Theory of Taxation
Chapter 11: Applying First-Best Principles of Taxation-What to Tax and How
Part III: The Theory of Public Expenditures and Taxation: Second-Best Analysis
Chapter 12: Introduction to Second-Best Analysis
Chapter 13: The Second-Best Theory of Taxation in One-Consumer Economies
with Linear Production Technology
Chapter 14: The Second-Best Theory of Taxation with General Production
Technologies and Many Consumers
Chapter 15: Taxation Under Asymmetric Information
Chapter 16: The Theory and Measurement of Tax Incidence
Chapter 17: Expenditure Incidence and Economy-Wide Incidence Studies
Chapter 18: The Second-Best Theory of Public Expenditures: Overview
Chapter 19: Transfer Payments and Private Information
Chapter 20: Social Insurance: Medical Care
Chapter 21: Social Insurance: Social Security
Chapter 22: Externalities in a Second-Best Environment
Chapter 23: Decreasing Costs and the Theory of the Second-Best-The Boiteux
Problem
Chapter 24: General Production Rules in a Second-Best Environment
Chapter 25: Behavioral Public Sector Economics
Part IV: Fiscal Federalism and International Public Finance
Chapter 26: Optimal Federalism: Sorting the Functions of Government Within
the Fiscal Hierarchy
Chapter 27: Optimal Federalism: The Sorting of People within the Fiscal
Hierarchy
Chapter 28: The Role of Grants-in-Aid in a Federalist System of Governments
Chapter 29: International Public Finance