This authoritative collection presents seminal papers from leading academics charting recent developments in public finance. The two-volume set encompasses numerous sections including the public sector in a market economy, market imperfections, growth implications of public policies and efficiency and distributive implications of public policies.

Contents: Volume I: Resource Allocation and Distribution Acknowledgements Introduction Vito Tanzi and Howell Zee PART I PUBLIC SECTOR IN A MARKET ECONOMY 1. George J. Stigler (1968), ‘The Government of the Economy’ 2. Kenneth J. Arrow (1977), ‘The Organization of Economic Activity: Issues Pertinent to the Choice of Market Versus Nonmarket Allocation’ 3. Vito Tanzi (2005), ‘The Economic Role of the State in the 21st Century’ PART II MARKET IMPERFECTIONS AND LIMITS TO PUBLIC INTERVENTION 4. George A. Akerlof (1970), ‘The Market for “Lemons”: Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism’ 5. Mancur Olson (1982), ‘The Logic’ 6. R.H. Coase (1994), ‘The Institutional Structure of Production’ 7. Avinash Dixit and Mancur Olson (2000), ‘Does Voluntary Participation Undermine the Coase Theorem?’ 8. Avinash Dixit (2009), ‘Governance Institutions and Economic Activity’ PART III INCENTIVES, SOCIAL CHOICES AND PRIVATE PROVISION OF PUBLIC GOODS 9. T. Nicolaus Tideman and Gordon Tullock (1976), ‘A New and Superior Process for Making Social Choices’ 10. James M. Buchanan (1983), ‘The Public Choice Perspective’ 11. Theodore Bergstrom, Lawrence Blume and Hal Varian (1986), ‘On the Private Provision of Public Goods’ 12. Amartya Sen (1999), ‘The Possibility of Social Choice’ 13. Rebecca M. Blank (2000), ‘When Can Public Policy Makers Rely on Private Markets? The Effective Provision of Social Services’ 14. Jean-Jacques Laffont and David Martimort (2002), ‘Incentives in Economic Thought’ PART IV EFFICIENCY AND DISTRIBUTIVE IMPLICATIONS OF PUBLIC POLICIES 15. Edmund S. Phelps (1973), ‘Taxation of Wage Income for Economic Justice’ 16. John Rawls (1974), ‘Some Reasons for the Maximin Criterion’ 17. Arthur M. Okun (1975), ‘Increasing Equality in an Efficient Economy’ 18. A.B. Atkinson and J.E. Stiglitz (1976), ‘The Design of Tax Structure: Direct Versus Indirect Taxation’ 19. J.A. Mirrlees (1982), ‘The Economic Uses of Utilitarianism’ 20. Don Fullerton and Diane Lim Rogers (1991), ‘Lifetime Versus Annual Perspectives on Tax Incidence’ 21. Assar Lindbeck, Sten Nyberg and Jörgen W. Weibull (2003), ‘Social Norms and Welfare State Dynamics’ 22. Yan Chen and Sherry Xin Li (2009), ‘Group Identity and Social Preferences’ PART V INTERJURISDICTIONAL POLICY DIMENSIONS 23. Roger H. Gordon (1983), ‘An Optimal Taxation Approach to Fiscal Federalism’ 24. Martin C. McGuire (1991), ‘Group Composition, Collective Consumption, and Collaborative Production’ 25. Oded Hochman, David Pines and Jacques-François Thisse (1995), ‘On the Optimal Structure of Local Governments’ 26. Wallace E. Oates (1999), ‘An Essay on Fiscal Federalism’ 27. Todd Sandler (2002), ‘Demand and Institutions for Regional Public Goods’ 28. Robin Boadway (2006), ‘Intergovernmental Redistributive Transfers: Efficiency and Equity’ 29. Agnar Sandmo (2003), ‘International Aspects of Public Goods Provision’ Volume II: Stabilization and Growth Acknowledgements An introduction to both volumes by the editors appears in Volume I PART I DEFICITS, GOVERNMENT BUDGET CONSTRAINT, AND INFLATION 1. Alan S. Blinder and Robert M. Solow (1973), ‘Does Fiscal Policy Matter?’ 2. Robert J. Barro (1974), ‘Are Government Bonds Net Wealth?’ 3. Vito Tanzi (1978), ‘Inflation, Real Tax Revenue, and the Case for Inflationary Finance: Theory with an Application to Argentina’ 4. Thomas J. Sargent and Neil Wallace (1981), ‘Some Unpleasant Monetarist Arithmetic’ 5. Olivier J. Blanchard (1985), ‘Debt, Deficits, and Finite Horizons’ 6. Alan J. Auerbach, Jagadeesh Gokhale and Laurence J. Kotlikoff (1991), ‘Generational Accounts: A Meaningful Alternative to Deficit Accounting’ 7. Vito Tanzi, Mario I. Blejer and Mario O. Teijeiro (1993), ‘Effects of Inflation on Measurement of Fiscal Deficits: Conventional Versus Operational Measures’ 8. Hana Polackova Brixi and Ashoka Mody (2002), ‘Dealing with Government Fiscal Risk: An Overview’ PART II CAPITAL MOBILITY, GLOBALIZATION AND INTERDEPENDENCE OF POLICY 9. Jacob A. Frenkel and Assaf Razin (1988), ‘Introduction’, ‘Government Spending Policies’, ‘Tax Policies’, ‘Concluding Remarks’ 10. James Tobin (1996), ‘Prologue’ 11. Peter Birch Sørensen (2004), ‘International Tax Coordination: Regionalism Versus Globalism’ 12. Jeffrey A. Frankel (2006), ‘Twin Deficits and Twin Decades’ 13. James R. Hines Jr. (2007), ‘Corporate Taxation and International Competition’ PART III RULES, DISCRETION AND INTERTEMPORAL CONSISTENCY OF OPTIMAL POLICES 14. Stanley Fischer (1980), ‘Dynamic Inconsistency, Cooperation and the Benevolent Dissembling Government’ 15. Mats Persson, Torsten Persson and Lars E.O. Svensson (1987), ‘Time Consistency of Fiscal and Monetary Policy’ 16. Fabrizio Balassone and Daniele Franco (2000), ‘Public Investment, the Stability Pact and the “Golden Rule”’ 17. George Kopits (2007), ‘Fiscal Responsibility Framework: International Experience and Implications for Hungary’ PART IV GROWTH IMPLICATIONS OF PUBLIC POLICIES 18. David Alan Aschauer (1989), ‘Is Public Expenditure Productive?’ 19. Robert J. Barro (1990), ‘Government Spending in a Simple Model of Endogenous Growth’ 20. William Easterly and Sergio Rebelo (1993), ‘Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth: An Empirical Investigation’ 21. Nancy L. Stokey and Sergio Rebelo (1995), ‘Growth Effects of Flat-Rate Taxes’ 22. Kevin A. Hassett and R. Glenn Hubbard (1997), ‘Tax Policy and Investment’ 23. Alan J. Auerbach (2008), ‘Tax Reform in the Twenty-first Century’