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Elsevier

Public Finance

A Normative Theory

  • 4th Edition - January 7, 2022
  • Latest edition
  • Author: Richard W. Tresch
  • Language: English

Public Finance: A Normative Theory, Fourth Edition provides a classic text on the normative theory of government policy. This valuable and accessible resource covers the welfar… Read more

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Description

Public Finance: A Normative Theory, Fourth Edition provides a classic text on the normative theory of government policy. This valuable and accessible resource covers the welfare aspects of public economics, with considerable coverage of European examples. The work presents detailed and comprehensive coverage of theoretical literature, empirical work, environmental issues, social insurance, behavioral economics and international tax issues. The book is organized logically, written in an engaging manner, and is both sufficiently rigid for use by those with PhDs in math and accessible to students less well trained in math.

Key features

  • Provides a logical progression from normative theory to concise mathematical applications
  • Covers European examples, welfare economics and tax law updates
  • Includes pedagogical supplements such as end-of-chapter questions and answers

Readership

Advanced undergraduate and graduate students studying public finance and public economics, and more broadly welfare economics.

Table of contents

Part I: Introduction: The Content and Methodology of Public Sector Theory

1. Introduction to Normative Public Sector Theory

2. A General Equilibrium Model for Public Sector Analysis

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

4. The Social Welfare Function in Policy Analysis

5. The Problem of Externalities--An Overview

6. Consumption Externalities

7. Production Externalities

8. Global Warming: An Application of Externality Theory

9. The Theory of Decreasing Cost Production

10. The First-Best Theory of Taxation

11. Applying First-Best Principles of Taxation—What to Tax and How

Part III: The Theory of Public Expenditures and Taxation: Second-Best Analysis

12. Introduction to Second-Best Analysis

13. The Second-Best Theory of Taxation in One-Consumer Economies with Linear Production Technology

14. The Second-Best Theory of Taxation with General Production Technologies and Many Consumers

15. Taxation Under Asymmetric Information

16. The Theory and Measurement of Tax Incidence

17. Expenditure Incidence and Economy-Wide Incidence Studies

18. The Second-Best Theory of Public Expenditures: Overview

19. Transfer Payments and Private Information

20. Social Insurance: Medical Care

21. Social Insurance: Social Security

22. Externalities in a Second-Best Environment

23. Decreasing Costs and the Theory of the Second-Best—The Boiteux Problem

24. General Production Rules in a Second-Best Environment

25. Behavioral Public Sector Economics

Part IV: Fiscal Federalism and International Public Finance

26. Optimal Federalism: Sorting the Functions of Government Within the Fiscal Hierarchy

27. Optimal Federalism: The Sorting of People within the Fiscal Hierarchy

28. The Role of Grants-in-Aid in a Federalist System of Governments

29. International Public Finance

Review quotes

"...a detailed introduction to theoretical work on many of the core issues in contemporary public economics. Careful and comprehensive, it will provide readers with an ideal springboard to further research."—James M. Poterba, Mitsui Professor of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA

"...outstanding in the breadth of its coverage, in the quality of exposition, and in the balance between theory and policy...especially good at melding newer approaches to the normative study of the public sector with traditional ones."—Robin Boadway, Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada

"I have hoped for years that Richard Tresch would revise his Public Finance text. This volume is well worth the wait. It is comprehensive, up-to-date, and very clearly written. It is a natural reading for a graduate course in public finance. It will also serve as a fine reference for specialists in the field."—Harvey Rosen, Department of Economics, Princeton University, Princeton, USA

Product details

  • Edition: 4
  • Latest edition
  • Published: April 21, 2022
  • Language: English

About the author

RT

Richard W. Tresch

Richard Tresch earned a bachelor’s degree in 1965 from Williams College and a doctorate in economics in 1973 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was a teaching assistant prior to joining Boston College. He joined the Boston College faculty in 1969, and during his 49-year-long career in the college, Dr. Tresch has served as the Chairman of the Department of Economics, Director of Graduate Studies, and Director of Undergraduate Studies. Currently, he is Professor Emeritus of Economics at Boston College. In 1996, he was chosen as the Massachusetts Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. He was one of 585 national entrants in the foundation’s U.S. Professors of the Year Program, which salutes outstanding undergraduate instructors, with the award recognized as one of the most prestigious honors to be bestowed on professors. Dr. Tresch, a member of the American Economic Association, has served on the board of editors of the American Economic Review and contributed to the New England Journal of Business and Economics and Public Finance. Moreover, he is the editor of a fourvolume major reference work on public sector economics.
Affiliations and expertise
Boston College, Massachusetts, USA

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