The Political Economy of Public Finance


Book Description

A study of major trends in public finance and fiscal justice in developed capitalist countries since the 1970s.




The New Dynamic Public Finance


Book Description

Optimal tax design attempts to resolve a well-known trade-off: namely, that high taxes are bad insofar as they discourage people from working, but good to the degree that, by redistributing wealth, they help insure people against productivity shocks. Until recently, however, economic research on this question either ignored people's uncertainty about their future productivities or imposed strong and unrealistic functional form restrictions on taxes. In response to these problems, the new dynamic public finance was developed to study the design of optimal taxes given only minimal restrictions on the set of possible tax instruments, and on the nature of shocks affecting people in the economy. In this book, Narayana Kocherlakota surveys and discusses this exciting new approach to public finance. An important book for advanced PhD courses in public finance and macroeconomics, The New Dynamic Public Finance provides a formal connection between the problem of dynamic optimal taxation and dynamic principal-agent contracting theory. This connection means that the properties of solutions to principal-agent problems can be used to determine the properties of optimal tax systems. The book shows that such optimal tax systems necessarily involve asset income taxes, which may depend in sophisticated ways on current and past labor incomes. It also addresses the implications of this new approach for qualitative properties of optimal monetary policy, optimal government debt policy, and optimal bequest taxes. In addition, the book describes computational methods for approximate calculation of optimal taxes, and discusses possible paths for future research.




Finance and Economic Development


Book Description

" The empirical literature on finance and development suggests that countries with better developed financial systems experience faster economic growth. Financial development-as captured by size, depth, efficiency, and reach of financial systems-varies sharply around the world, with large differences among countries at similar levels of income. This paper argues that governments play an important role in building effective financial systems and discusses different policy options to make finance work for development."--World Bank web site.




Public Financial Management and Its Emerging Architecture


Book Description

The first two decades of the twenty-first century have witnessed an influx of innovations and reforms in public financial management. The current wave of reforms is markedly different from those in the past, owing to the sheer number of innovations, their widespread adoption, and the sense that they add up to a fundamental change in the way governments manage public money. This book takes stock of the most important innovations that have emerged over the past two decades, including fiscal responsibility legislation, fiscal rules, medium-term budget frameworks, fiscal councils, fiscal risk management techniques, performance budgeting, and accrual reporting and accounting. Not merely a handbook or manual describing practices in the field, the volume instead poses critical questions about innovations; the issues and challenges that have appeared along the way, including those associated with the global economic crisis; and how the ground can be prepared for the next generation of public financial management reforms. Watch Video of Book Launch




Public Debt and Economic Growth


Book Description

Starting point of this book is the observation that an increase in public debt must be accompanied by a rise in the primary surplus of the government to guarantee sustainability of public debt. The book first elaborates on that principle from a theoretical point of view and then tests whether empirical evidence for that rule can be found. Additional tests are implemented to gain further evidence on sustainability of public debt. In order to allow for time varying coefficients penalized spline estimations are performed. The theoretical chapters present endogenous growth models and assume that the primary surplus rises as public debt increases so that sustainability of public debt is given. Implications of public deficits and debt are studied assuming full employment and for unemployment. The conclusion summarizes the findings and compares the results of the different models. Finally, policy implications are given showing how governments should deal with high public debt to GDP ratios.




Finance and Growth


Book Description

"This paper reviews, appraises, and critiques theoretical and empirical research on the connections between the operation of the financial system and economic growth. While subject to ample qualifications and countervailing views, the preponderance of evidence suggests that both financial intermediaries and markets matter for growth and that reverse causality alone is not driving this relationship. Furthermore, theory and evidence imply that better developed financial systems ease external financing constraints facing firms, which illuminates one mechanism through which financial development influences economic growth. The paper highlights many areas needing additional research"--NBER website




Economic Development Finance


Book Description

"Economic Development Finance provides a foundation for students and professionals in the technical aspects of business and real estate finance and surveys the full range of policies, program models, and financing tools used in economic development practice within the United States."--Jacket.




The Global Informal Workforce


Book Description

The Global Informal Workforce is a fresh look at the informal economy around the world and its impact on the macroeconomy. The book covers interactions between the informal economy, labor and product markets, gender equality, fiscal institutions and outcomes, social protection, and financial inclusion. Informality is a widespread and persistent phenomenon that affects how fast economies can grow, develop, and provide decent economic opportunities for their populations. The COVID-19 pandemic has helped to uncover the vulnerabilities of the informal workforce.




The Public Wealth of Nations


Book Description

We have spent the last three decades engaged in a pointless and irrelevant debate about the relative merits of privatization or nationalization. We have been arguing about the wrong thing while sitting on a goldmine of assets. Don’t worry about who owns those assets, worry about whether they are managed effectively. Why does this matter? Because despite the Thatcher/ Reagan economic revolution, the largest pool of wealth in the world – a global total that is much larger than the world’s total pensions savings, and ten times the total of all the sovereign wealth funds on the planet – is still comprised of commercial assets that are held in public ownership. If professionally managed, they could generate an annual yield of 2.7 trillion dollars, more than current global spending on infrastructure: transport, power, water, and communications. Based on both economic research and hands-on experience from many countries, the authors argue that publicly owned commercial assets need to be taken out of the direct and distorting control of politicians and placed under professional management in a ‘National Wealth Fund’ or its local government equivalent. Such a move would trigger much-needed structural reforms in national economies, thus resurrect strained government finances, bolster ailing economic growth, and improve the fabric of democratic institutions. This radical, reforming book was named one of the "Books of the Year".by both the FT and The Economist.




Social, Economic, and Environmental Impacts Between Sustainable Financial Systems and Financial Markets


Book Description

Sustainable development is necessary to counteract and mitigate the impact of socially harmful forces in a globalized world. However, sustainable development and its organizations must ensure the effective management of their funds and beneficial financial frameworks in order to best realize their sustainable goals. There is a need for studies that seek to understand how to connect sustainable development and the financial world in order to maximize the economic and environmental wellbeing of the world. Social, Economic, and Environmental Impacts Between Sustainable Financial Systems and Financial Markets is a pivotal reference source that examines the funding and monetary utilization of environmental and socially-responsible entities. Featuring research on topics such as green taxes, intergenerational equity, and shadow economy, this book is ideally designed for government officials, policymakers, economists, financial managers, sustainability developers, and academicians seeking current research on the relationship between new sustainable financial phenomena and negative global externalities.