PUBLIC FINANCE IN THEORY AND PRACTICE MUSGRAVE R.,MUSGRAVE P. Księgarnia

Excerpt from the Preface to the First Edition:

Choosing a title for a book is like naming a product. It must describe the basic service which it renders, yet one wishes to differentiate one's own brand. Public Finance does the former and Theory and Practice serves the latter purpose.

On one side there is the vast array of fiscal institutions tax systems, expenditure programs, budget procedures, stabilization instruments, debt issues, levels of government. Congress, the Executive, city halls, and the voters. On the other, there is the endless stream of issues arising in the operation of these institutions. How big a share of GNP should be included in the public sector and how should the choice of public expenditures be determined? What taxes are to be chosen and who really bears their burden? How should fiscal functions be divided among levels of government? How can a high level of employment be reconciled with stable prices? Pursuit of these issues leads from one end of economic analysis to the other. Our study, therefore, must combine a thorough understanding of fiscal institutions with a careful analysis of the economic principles which underlie budget policy.

As a study in public policy, this volume deals with many of the central economic and social issues of our time. They are issues which call for resolution by public policy because, like it or not, they cannot be handled adequately through a decentralized market. The existence of externalities, concern for adjustments in the distribution of income and wealth, as well as the maintenance of high employment and price level stability all pose issues which require political processes for their resolution. A public sector is needed to make society work and the problem is how to do this in a framework of individual freedom and justice.

Given the central role of the political process in fiscal decisions, the study of public finance thus reaches beyond the sphere of economics narrowly defined and into what might otherwise be considered matters of political science and philosophy. Recognizing the importance of these overlaps, we have not shied away from such problems but have tried to meet them where they arise. Making the fiscal system work is, after all, a large part of making democracy function.

626 pages

Po otrzymaniu zamówienia poinformujemy,
czy wybrany tytuł polskojęzyczny lub anglojęzyczny jest aktualnie na półce księgarni.