IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pri/cepsud/80.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Public Finance: Essay for the Encyclopedia of Public Choice

Author

Listed:
  • Harvey S. Rosen

    (Princeton University)

Abstract

Public Finance is the branch of economics that studies the taxing and spending activities of government. The term is something of a misnomer, because the fundamental issues are not financial (that is, relating to money). Rather, the key problems relate to the use of real resources. For this reason, some practitioners prefer the label public sector economics or simply public economics. Public finance encompasses both positive and normative analysis. Positive analysis deals with issues of cause and effect, for example, "If the government cuts the tax rate on gasoline, what will be the effect on gasoline consumption" Normative analysis deals with ethical issues, for example, "Is it fairer to tax income or consumption" Modern public finance focuses on the microeconomic functions of government, how the government does and should affect the allocation of resources and the distribution of income. For the most part, the macroeconomic functions of government--the use of taxing, spending, and monetary policies to affect the overall level of unemployment and the price level--are covered in other fields.

Suggested Citation

  • Harvey S. Rosen, 2002. "Public Finance: Essay for the Encyclopedia of Public Choice," Working Papers 122, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    • Handle: RePEc:pri:cepsud:80
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://gceps.princeton.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/80rosen.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gale, William G. & Slemrod, Joel, 2000. "Life and Death Questions About the Estate and Gift Tax," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 53(4), pages 889-912, December.
    2. Holcombe, Randall G., 1998. "Tax Policy From a Public Choice Perspective," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 51(2), pages 359-371, June.
    3. Nichols, Albert L & Zeckhauser, Richard J, 1982. "Targeting Transfers through Restrictions on Recipients," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(2), pages 372-377, May.
    4. Feldstein, Martin, 1976. "On the theory of tax reform," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1-2), pages 77-104.
    5. Victor R. Fuchs, 2005. "Health, Government, and Irving Fisher," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 64(1), pages 407-425, January.
    6. Bruce D. Meyer, 1995. "Lessons from the U.S. Unemployment Insurance Experiments," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 33(1), pages 91-131, March.
    7. Wallace E. Oates & Wallace E. Oates, 2004. "An Essay on Fiscal Federalism," Chapters, in: Environmental Policy and Fiscal Federalism, chapter 22, pages 384-414, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. Gale, William G. & Slemrod, Joel, 2000. "Life and Death Questions About the Estate and Gift Tax," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 53(n. 4), pages 889-912, December.
    9. Sijbren Cnossen, 1998. "Global Trends and Issues in Value Added Taxation," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 5(3), pages 399-428, July.
    10. George A. Akerlof, 1970. "The Market for "Lemons": Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 84(3), pages 488-500.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:pri:cepsud:80rosen is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Harvey S. Rosen, 2002. "Public Finance: Essay for the Encyclopedia of Public Choice," Working Papers 122, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    3. José Mª Durán Cabré & Alejandro Esteller Moré, 2007. "An empirical analysis of wealth taxation: Equity Vs.tax compliance," Working Papers XREAP2007-03, Xarxa de Referència en Economia Aplicada (XREAP), revised Jun 2007.
    4. Charles Delmotte, 2021. "Simple rules and the Political Economy of Income Taxation: the strengths of a uniform expense rule," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 52(2), pages 323-339, December.
    5. Wagner, Alexander F. & Miller, Nolan H. & Zeckhauser, Richard J., 2006. "Screening budgets," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 61(3), pages 351-374, November.
    6. Cutler, David M. & Zeckhauser, Richard J., 2000. "The anatomy of health insurance," Handbook of Health Economics, in: A. J. Culyer & J. P. Newhouse (ed.), Handbook of Health Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 11, pages 563-643, Elsevier.
    7. Raj Chetty & Amy Finkelstein, 2012. "Social Insurance: Connecting Theory to Data," NBER Working Papers 18433, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Slack, Sean & Ulph, David, 2014. "Optimal Universal and Categorical Benefits with Classification Errors and Imperfect Enforcement," SIRE Discussion Papers 2015-13, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    9. Lars P. Feld, 2006. "Regulatory Competition and Federalism in Switzerland: Diffusion by Horizontal and Vertical Interaction," CREMA Working Paper Series 2006-22, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    10. Elin Halvorsen & Thor O. Thoresen, 2011. "Parents' Desire to Make Equal Inter Vivos Transfers," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 57(1), pages 121-155, March.
    11. Mare, Mauro, 2015. "Why and How should the EU budget be reformed?," MPRA Paper 76112, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Russell S. Sobel & John A. Dove, 2016. "Analyzing the Effectiveness of State Regulatory Review," Public Finance Review, , vol. 44(4), pages 446-477, July.
    13. Ringa Raudla, 2010. "Governing budgetary commons: what can we learn from Elinor Ostrom?," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 30(3), pages 201-221, December.
    14. Richard E. Wagner, 2012. "Deficits, Debt, and Democracy," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14477.
    15. Barr, Nicholas, 1992. "Economic theory and the welfare state : a survey and interpretation," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 279, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    16. Douglas M. Walker & John D. Jackson, 2008. "Do U.S. Gambling Industries Cannibalize Each Other?," Public Finance Review, , vol. 36(3), pages 308-333, May.
    17. Blank, Rebecca M., 2002. "Can equity and efficiency complement each other?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 451-468, September.
    18. Cosgel, Metin M., 2006. "Taxes, efficiency, and redistribution: Discriminatory taxation of villages in Ottoman Palestine, Southern Syria, and Transjordan in the sixteenth century," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 332-356, April.
    19. Slack, Sean & Ulph, David, 2014. "Optimal Universal and Categorical Benefits with Classification Errors and Imperfect Enforcement," 2007 Annual Meeting, July 29-August 1, 2007, Portland, Oregon TN 2015-13, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    20. Jody W. Lipford, 2022. "The Distribution of Transfers and Taxes: Incentives and Implications for the US Deficit and Debt," Journal of Private Enterprise, The Association of Private Enterprise Education, vol. 37(Winter 20), pages 1-20.
    21. Krumm, Raimund & Volkert, Jürgen, 2015. "Möglichkeiten und Grenzen der politischen Realisierbarkeit intra- und intergenerativer Gerechtigkeit," UFZ Discussion Papers 11/2015, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Division of Social Sciences (ÖKUS).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E60 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pri:cepsud:80. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Bobray Bordelon (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ceprius.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.