We are currently engaged in the most fundamental debate about the role of government in decades, and who better than Jonathan Gruber to guide students through the particulars in the new edition of his best-selling text, Public Finance and Public Policy, 6e. The new edition details ongoing policy debates, with special focus on the largest tax reform in 30 years. New topics include universal basic income, the legalisation of weed, and congestion pricing. And, of course, there is an extensive, in-depth discussion of the debate over health care At the heart of this new edition is the authors belief that at no other time has it been so important to know the facts, to distinguish facts from falsehoods, and to be thinking clearly about problem, policy, and politics. The sixth edition delivers on all counts.
PART I Introduction and Background.- 1. Why Study Public Finance?.-
2.Theoretical Tools of Public Finance.- 3.Empirical Tools of Public Finance.-
4. Budget Analysis and Deficit Financing.- PART II Externalities and Public
Goods.- 5. Externalities: Problems and Solutions.- 6. Externalities in
Action: Environmental and Health Externalities.- 7. Public Goods.-
8. Cost-Benefit Analysis.-9. Political Economy.- 10. State and Local
Government Expenditures.- 11. Education.- PART III Social Insurance and
Redistribution.- 12. Social Insurance: The New Function of Government.-
13. Social Security.- 14. Unemployment Insurance, Disability Insurance, and
Workers Compensation.- 15. Health Insurance I: Health Economics and Private
Health Insurance.- 16. Health Insurance II: Medicare, Medicaid, and Health
Care Reform.- 17. Income Distribution and Welfare Programs.- PART IV Taxation
in Theory and Practice.- 18. Taxation: How It Works and What It Means.-
19. The Equity Implications of Taxation: Tax Incidence.- 20. Tax
Inefficiencies and Their Implications for Optimal Taxation.- 21. Taxes on
Labor Supply.- 22. Taxes on Savings.- 23. Taxes on Risk Taking and Wealth.-
24. Taxation of Business Income.- 25. Fundamental Tax Reform and Consumption
Taxation
Dr. Jonathan Gruber is a Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he has taught since 1992. He is also the Director of the Health Care Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research, where he is a Research Associate, and former President Elect of the American Society of Health Economists. He is also a member of the Institute of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy of Social Insurance.
