Author: Robert Dorfman Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing ISBN: Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 522
Book Description
Thirty-one essays reflect Professor Dorfman's contributions to the analysis of economic theory and public decision making during the last 40 years. The central concern of much of his career has been social decisions: how they are reached, and how they should be judged. Arrangement is in six sections covering statistics, mathematical methods, economic theory, natural resource and environmental economics, social decisions, and the history of economics. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Author: Massimo Marrelli Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media ISBN: 1461515831 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 212
Book Description
The problems arising from the existence of asymmetric information in public decision making have been widely explored by economists. Most of the traditional analysis of public sector activities has been reviewed to take accountofthe possible distortions arising from an asymmetric distribution of relevant information among the actors of the public decision-making process. A normative approach has been developed to design incentive schemes which tackle adverse selection and moral hazard problems within public organisations: our understanding of these problems is now much better, and some of the mechanisms designed have had important practical implications. While this analysis is still under way in many fields of public economics, as the papers by Jones and Zanola, and Trimarchi witness, a debate is ongoing on the possible theoretical limitations ofthis approach and on its actual relevance for public sector activities. This book encompasses different contributions to these issues, on both theoretical and practical areas, which were firstly presented at a conference in Catania. The innermost problem in the current discussion arises from the fact that this normative analysis is firmly rooted in the complete contracting framework, with the consequence that, despite the analytical complexities of most models, their results rely on very simplified assumptions. Most complexities of the organisation of public sector, and more generally, of writing "contracts", are therefore swept away.
Author: Norman Schofield Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media ISBN: 9401587671 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 430
Book Description
In the last decade the techniques of social choice theory, game theory and positive political theory have been combined in interesting ways so as to pro vide a common framework for analyzing the behavior of a developed political economy. Social choice theory itself grew out of the innovative attempts by Ken neth Arrow (1951) and Duncan Black (1948, 1958) to extend the range of economic theory in order to deal with collective decision-making over public goods. Later work, by William Baumol (1952), and James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock (1962), focussed on providing an "economic" interpretation of democratic institutions. In the same period Anthony Downs (1957) sought to model representative democracy and elections while William Riker (1962) made use of work in cooperative game theory (by John von Neumann and Oscar Morgenstern, 1944) to study coalition behavior. In my view, these "rational choice" analyses of collective decision-making have their antecedents in the arguments of Adam Smith (1759, 1776), James Madison (1787) and the Marquis de Condorcet (1785) about the "design" of political institutions. In the introductory chapter to this volume I briefly describe how some of the current normative and positive aspects of social choice date back to these earlier writers.
Author: Albert Breton Publisher: Transaction Publishers ISBN: 0202365794 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 246
Book Description
This book provides a theory capable of explaining the patterns of public expenditures and taxation that occur under representative government. Economists and political scientists have come to realize that issues of public policy and public finance cannot be solved on the naive assumption that these are problems tackled by a government that exists only to serve the public good. Instead, government must be understood as one of the major economic institutions of society, one that behaves like more familiar economic institutions--the household and the firm--though the market it confronts is a market for policies rather than for goods and services. Albert Breton's pathbreaking work remains important in taking us toward a theory of representative government that enables an understanding of the observed behavior of political institutions. The author's analysis is cast in a relatively simple demand, supply and demand-supply-equilibrium framework, using the tools of marginal and stability analysis to explain the forces that influence and determine the flow of resources as they are allocated between competing ends in the public sector. The book presents a model of demand by citizens, who are assumed to be maximizing their desires for specific public policies and private goods, and a model of the supply of public policies by politicians and bureaucrats, who are assumed to be maximizing the probability of their re-election and the size of their budgets. Breton defines government policies and the institutional framework for collective choices in terms that render them amenable to further analysis. The main accomplishment of Breton's theory is that it provides the ability to analyze the interaction of individuals and generates testable propositions about the behavior of these individuals as well as about the behavior of public expenditures and taxation in more aggregative terms. In this way the book will be useful to students of economics, economists, and those interested in economic theory. Albert Breton is professor emeritus of economics at the University of Toronto. He was once director of research for The Social Research Group in Montreal. His articles have been widely published in major journals and some of his recent books include Rational Foundations of Democratic Politics and Political Extremism and Rationality (with Gianluigi Galeotti, Pierre Salmon, and Ronald Wintrobe) and Bijuralism: An Economic Approach (with Michael J. Trebilcock).
Author: Orville Brim Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1351304550 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 245
Book Description
This book provides a theory capable of explaining the patterns of public expenditures and taxation that occur under representative government. Economists and political scientists have come to realize that issues of public policy and public finance cannot be solved on the naive assumption that these are problems tackled by a government that exists only to serve the public good. Instead, government must be understood as one of the major economic institutions of society, one that behaves like more familiar economic institutions--the household and the firm--though the market it confronts is a market for policies rather than for goods and services. Albert Breton's pathbreaking work remains important in taking us toward a theory of representative government that enables an understanding of the observed behavior of political institutions. The author's analysis is cast in a relatively simple demand, supply and demand-supply-equilibrium framework, using the tools of marginal and stability analysis to explain the forces that influence and determine the flow of resources as they are allocated between competing ends in the public sector. The book presents a model of demand by citizens, who are assumed to be maximizing their desires for specific public policies and private goods, and a model of the supply of public policies by politicians and bureaucrats, who are assumed to be maximizing the probability of their re-election and the size of their budgets. Breton defines government policies and the institutional framework for collective choices in terms that render them amenable to further analysis. The main accomplishment of Breton's theory is that it provides the ability to analyze the interaction of individuals and generates testable propositions about the behavior of these individuals as well as about the behavior of public expenditures and taxation in more aggregative terms. In this way the book will be useful to students of economics, economists, and those interested in economic theory.
Author: Anthony Downs Publisher: ISBN: Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 200
Book Description
This volume contains a selection of Anthony Downs' essays, written since the 1950s, on politics and political theory. The articles address such issues as democracy, public choice theory, rational political decision-making and political policy.
Author: David N. Hyman Publisher: Arden Shakespeare ISBN: 9780324537352 Category : Finance, Public Languages : en Pages : 748
Book Description
Once again, popular author and seasoned economist Dr. David Hyman delivers a balanced presentation of public policy that equips readers with a solid understanding of economic theory and how it affects policy issues. Extremely student friendly, PUBLIC FINANCE, International Edition, 9th edition thoroughly illustrates the role government plays in the economy and explains how and why the public sector makes decisions. The text also describes public goods--the many instances in which the public sector does not make efficient decisions and the government must step in to provide goods efficiently and equitably to all members of society. The book provides comprehensive coverage of tax issues (the supply of public funds), as well as includes such topics as health care, cost-benefit analysis, and other issues that involve government-spending decisions--issues that deal with the demand for public funds.Packed with timely, real-world examples, Public Finance provides an interesting read that sparks lively student discussion and debate with its coverage of such hot topics as national defense and homeland security, pollution rights, Social Security reform, federal tax reform, the War in Iraq, and much more. Turning the spotlight on numerous international governments, the text also gives students an excellent overview of the role of economics in the global marketplace. In addition, it includes numerous study tools and exercises to help students sharpen their economic acumen.
Author: Charles Rowley Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media ISBN: 0387758704 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 617
Book Description
Public choice is the study of behavior at the intersection of economics and political science. Since the pioneering work of Duncan Black in the 1940s, public choice has developed a rich literature, drawing from such related perspectives as history, philosophy, law, and sociology, to analyze political decision making (by citizen-voters, elected officials, bureaucratic administrators, lobbyists, and other "rational" actors) in social and economic context, with an emphasis on identifying differences between individual goals and collective outcomes. Constitutional political economy provides important insights into the relationship between effective constitutions and the behavior of ordinary political markets. In Readings in Public Choice and Constitutional Political Economy, Charles Rowley and Friedrich Schneider have assembled an international array of leading authors to present a comprehensive and accessible overview of the field and its applications. Covering a wide array of topics, including regulation and antitrust, taxation, trade liberalization, political corruption, interest group behavior, dictatorship, and environmental issues, and featuring biographies of the founding fathers of the field, this volume will be essential reading for scholars and students, policymakers, economists, sociologists, and non-specialist readers interested in the dynamics of political economy.
Author: Robert Dorfman
Author: Massimo Marrelli
Author: Norman Schofield
Author: Albert Breton
Author: Orville Brim
Author: Anthony Downs
Author: David N. Hyman
Author: Robert Dorfman
Author: Charles Rowley
Author: George Joseph Stigler