After briefly reviewing the received doctrine prior to the waves of privatisations beginning in the 1980s, this Element offers a survey of various analytical frameworks on State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) from the perspective of applied welfare economics. The focus then shifts to a positive...

This Element discusses the role of the government in the financing and provision of public health care. It summarises core knowledge and findings in the economics literature, giving a state-of-the-art account of public health care. The first section is devoted to health system financing. It...

This Element offers a review and synthesis of the theoretical analysis of mixed oligopoly, that is a hybrid market structure in which public (state-owned) and private firms interact, using a variety of strategic variables. A distinguishing feature of a mixed oligopoly is that firms have...

The objective of this Element is to provide an analysis of social protection from an economic perspective. It relies on tools and methods widely used in public and insurance economics and comprises four main section besides the introduction. The first section is devoted to the design of social...

Why is an understanding of political competition essential for the study of public economics and public policy generally? How can political competition be described and understood, and how does it differ from its strictly economic counterpart? What are the implications of the fact that policy...

Our societies are witnessing a steady increase in longevity. This demographic evolution is accompanied by some convergence across countries, but at the same time substantial longevity inequalities persist within nations across income classes. This Element aims to survey some crucial implications...

The authors provide a broad overview of economic aspects of commodity taxation, focussing in particular on theory and on policy applications in OECD countries. Some major papers in public economics have discussed whether these taxes should be levied at a uniform rate, or whether different...

Have you ever wondered how your telephone company or Internet service provider can give you access to almost all people in the world, or how electricity suppliers can compete with each other if there is only one electric supply line passing through your street? This Element deals with the...