Public Finance

When the time came to prepare this inaugural lecture I sought opinions from more experienced colleagues on the appropriate content and form; the consensus was that I should spend at least half my time praising my illustrious predecessors. Unfortunately this advice was not directly helpful, as the first holder of a Chair has no predecessors in the literal sense. But it did lead me to reflect on the reasons why this might be so and, more generally, on the status in this country of studies concerned with the economics of the public sector. Whilst it would be out of the question to expatiate in one lecture on all areas of public economics, including such matters as pricing and investment principles for public enterprise, it may be possible to say something worthwhile if we confine ourselves to the more strictly public finance or non-market2 aspects. Accordingly, I propose to develop my theme on the following lines. First, I shall discuss the a priori reasons for thinking that serious public finance studies might play an important role in the United Kingdom; then some of the features of such studies as one actually finds; then the most likely explanations of the divergence between expectations and realizations; and finally, possible future trends, welcome and unwelcome. It would not suffice to confine oneself to the work of economists in this field; some of their writings may not be a long-lived contribution to the study of public finance whereas, on the other hand, members of other professions, notably but not exclusively lawyers, may have a good deal to say of very great importance. Nor shall we confine ourselves to the work of academics; this would debar one from taking account of reports issuing from the legislative or executive arm of government or of any serious contributions made by journalists and financial commentators. It should also be emphasized that we shall be looking at studies made in, but not necessarily, of the United Kingdom; in other words, I want to appraise the serious contributions emanating from this country irrespective of whether they are of a mainly analytical or mainly empirical character and, if the

Divergence (linguistics) · Economics · Economy · Field (mathematics) · Frontier · Political science · Positive economics · Public finance · Public sector · Theme (computing) · Fiscal Policies and Political Economy · Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth · Law · Local Government Finance and Decentralization · Philosophy

• Understanding and avoiding negative consequences of value‐based laws, policies and programmes

  Open Access•Gerhard Fink, Steven E Wallis•Systems Research and Behavioral…•2022

  Add to list