Modern Public Economics

Raghbendra Jha is Professor of Economics at Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Bombay.

'This is a significant book. I am confident that it will rapidly gain pole position for advanced undergraduates and postgraduates.' - Professor P M Jackson, University of Leicester'Professor Jha's Modern Public Economics is one of those rare feats - an accessible, wide-ranging and marvellously organized survey of the field for intermediate students and a precise down-to-earth manual for practioners.' - Prof. Edmund S. Phelps, Columbia University'This is a clear, concise and well-written book on public economics – one of the best public economics textbooks I have read. The discussion of theoretical concepts in public economics is lucid and uncluttered; in his usual style, Professor Jha uses plenty of diagrams and intuition to complement the mathematical derivations. The inclusion of topics that are particularly germane to developing countries, such as taxation in an economy with a large informal sector and fiscal federalism, will make this a very appealing textbook in public economics for readers from developing countries. A very large section of the book is devoted to applied problems in public economics, including timely topics such as global public goods and the use of randomized evaluations in benefit-cost analysis. All in all, this is a must-read book for students and researchers interested in applied public economics and public policy, especially as it relates to developing countries.' - Professor Anil B. Deolalikar, University of California Riverside

• Table of contents Part 1: Welfare Economics 1. A Quick Primer on Consumer Demand 2. Perfect Competition an Pareto Optimality 3. Forms of the Social Welfare Function 4. Arrow's General Possibility and Other Impossibility TheoremsPart 2: The Theory of Public Expenditure 4. External Effects and the Market Mechanism 5. The Theory of Pure Public Goods 6. Topics in the Theory of Public GoodsPart 3: The Theory of Taxation 7. The Effects of Taxes on Savings 8. Taxation and Labor Supply 9. The Effects of Taxes on Investment Behavior 10. Taxation and Risk-Taking 11. The Theory of Tax Incidence 12. Tax Incidence in Dynamic Models 13. Some Results in Commodity Taxation 14. Aspects of Income Taxation 15. Topics in the Theory of Taxation 16. Tax ReformPart 4: Applied Problems in Public Economics 17. Pricing in the Public Sector 18. International Aspects of Taxation 19. Cost Benefit AnalysisPart 5: Fiscal Federalism 20. Issues in Fiscal Federalism 21. Grants and Taxes in Federal CountriesProblems Bibliography Name Index Subject Index