Essays in the theory of public goods and income redistribution

Abstract

Since the mid-1950's, public finance (at least in its Anglo-American variant) has undergone a complete transformation through the development of modern public expenditure theory. Prior to this time, public finance had been concerned almost entirely with tax matters. The treatment afforded the expenditure side of the budget had in most cases been little more than perfunctory and often enough, when public expenditures did appear, it was in their role as an alternative means of moderating the aggregate level of economic activity . The publication of Samuelson's three influential articles on public goods theory in the fifties, and the consequent eruption of interest in the literature throughout the ensuing· twenty years has changed all that. Public expenditure theory is now part of the standard analytical apparatus of the public finance theorist, and even the most elementary of modern textbooks in the field offer extensive discussion of the central ingredients of public goods theory.