Recent commentators on Russia's economic reforms have almost uniformly declared them a disappointing and avoidable failure. In this book, two American scholars take a new and more balanced look at the country's attempts to build capitalism on the ruins of Soviet central planning. They show how...

What principles should govern the design of governmental, budgetary and financial policy? Policymakers in the major industrial countries and officials of international organizations are deeply concerned about rising public debt burdens. But there are others who believe that only public spending...

Charles P. Kindleberger's rich and distinguished career has spanned nearly six decades. The essays collected here reflect the author's shift in interests from foreign exchange to international trade, economic growth, and economic history, especially financial history. They also contain dollops...

These studies of Colombian economic, political, and social institutions offer not only theoretically grounded analyses but also practical recommendations for policy reform. Experts from the United States, Europe, and Colombia approach such problems as executive-legislative branch conflict,...

The sixteen essays in this book were written to celebrate the ninetieth birthday of Richard Musgrave and to commemorate the tenth anniversary of CES, the Center for Economic Studies at the University of Munich. Musgrave is considered to be a founding father of modern public economics. He belongs...

Public economics studies how government taxing and spending activities affect the economy--economic efficiency and the distribution of income and wealth. This comprehensive text in public economics covers the core topics market failure and taxation as well as recent developments in the political...

Since 1991, Robert Barro has been a lively contributor to the Wall Street Journal and other popular financial media. Getting It Right brings together, updates, and expands upon these writings that showcase Barro's agility in applying economic understanding to a wide array of social issues....

Colombia, once a model of fiscal discipline for other Latin American nations, has seen its fiscal situation deteriorate since the early 1990s. Higher government spending, taxes that did not keep pace with expenditures, and severe recession led to an unsustainable debt-to-GDP ratio of 52 percent...

Although the United States has developed highly sophisticated markets for funding corporate investment projects, markets for financing home ownership are comparatively rudimentary. When a corporation wishes to fund a project, it can choose any mix of debt and equity financing. In contrast, to...

The existing literature in both public economics and financial economics often fails to consider how appropriate and effective public policy may be in promoting the venture capital industry. Public economics has dealt extensively with the effect of taxes and subsidies but has neglected the...