Advances in Public Economics

The study of public economics has undergone dramatic changes in the past two decades. Major developments in economic theory have revolutionized the subject and have changed the way we view the role of government. The constraints of information and institutions have called into question the ability of the government to carry out some of its traditional tasks, but have also led to new instruments and approaches for dealing with the problem of economic policy such as the design of the redistribution and tax system. Understanding the importance of the economic, behavioral and institutional constraints facing government is critical for evaluating policy options. This is ultimately an empirical issue. This book of a symposium on empiricial public finance indicates the richness and diversity of empirical approaches that have been used to shed light on the problems of applied public finance and its application. TOC:Introduction and Overview.- Economics of Public Programs.- Tax Leakages and Efficiency.- Do Governments Act in the Interest of Their Constituents?- Optimality of the Public Capital Stock.

I Introduction and overview.- Contemporary public economics.- II Economics of public programs.- The changing economic status of U.S. disabled men:Trends and their determinants, 1982-1991.- The role of labour demand elasticities in tax incidence analysis with heterogeneous labour..- III Tax leakages and efficiency.- Modelling the hidden economy and the tax-gap in New Zealand.- Tax efficiency in selected Indian states.- IV Do governments act in the interest of their constituents?.- Tax reforms and the growth of government.- Empirics of the median voter hypothesis in Japan.- v Optimality of the public capital stock.- Estimates of optimal public capital stocks in Japan using a public investment discount rate framework.- On the long run effect of public capital on aggregate output: Estimation and sensitivity analysis.