The paper examines the application of the concept of economic efficiency to collective decision processes and public sector institutions. We show that the existence of transactions costs and of collective decision-making procedures requires a broader framework for judging policy processes and...

There is a long-standing difference amongst public economists between those who think that collective choice must be formally acknowledged, and those who derive their policy recommendations from a social planning framework in which politics plays no role. The purpose of this book is to...

Tax systems have changed considerably in the past three decades. These fundamental changes have been the result of economic globalization, new political stances, and also of developments in public finance thought. The chapters in this volume offer a critical review of those changes from the...

The paper investigates the distributional basis for benefit-cost analysis when utility functions are independent. The change in utility for any individual caused by a given project can be written as the product of the marginal utility of income (Λ) and the income equivalent (measured by the...

This paper derives the essential elements of tax systems as the outcome of rational behavior in a model w here government maximizes expected support and where opposition to ta xation depends on the loss in full income. The analysis treats the le vel of expenditures as endogenous and integrates...

We explore the nature of tax complexity in competitive political systems. The analysis does not rely upon imperfections in the operation of the public sector. Complexity arises in the course of the struggle for office, during which political parties are induced to propose platforms that...