Rationality, Political Economy, and Fiscal Responsibility

Rationality, Political Economy, and Fiscal Responsibility PDF Author: Richard E. Wagner
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The continuing budget deficits and accumulating public debt that commonly plagues western democracies reflects a clash between two rationalities regarding human governance: one of private property and its conventions and one of common property and its procedural framework. The clashing of these rationalities creates forms of societal tectonics that play out through budgeting. Democratic budgeting creates a form of fiscal commons whose governance is subject to the tragic outcomes depicted by Garret Hardin (1968). To be sure, tragedy can be avoided as Elinor Ostrom (1990) explains, but only to the extent that the fiscal commons is governed in a manner consonant with Antonio De Viti de Marco's (1936) model of the cooperative state. While the tragedy of the commons that results from this tectonic clash is an inherent feature of democratic political economy, that tragedy can nonetheless be limited through reestablishing the conventions and institutions of a constitution of liberty.

Rationality, Political Economy, and Fiscal Responsibility

Rationality, Political Economy, and Fiscal Responsibility PDF Author: Richard E. Wagner
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
The continuing budget deficits and accumulating public debt that commonly plagues western democracies reflects a clash between two rationalities regarding human governance: one of private property and its conventions and one of common property and its procedural framework. The clashing of these rationalities creates forms of societal tectonics that play out through budgeting. Democratic budgeting creates a form of fiscal commons whose governance is subject to the tragic outcomes depicted by Garret Hardin (1968). To be sure, tragedy can be avoided as Elinor Ostrom (1990) explains, but only to the extent that the fiscal commons is governed in a manner consonant with Antonio De Viti de Marco's (1936) model of the cooperative state. While the tragedy of the commons that results from this tectonic clash is an inherent feature of democratic political economy, that tragedy can nonetheless be limited through reestablishing the conventions and institutions of a constitution of liberty.

Deficits, Debt, and Democracy

Deficits, Debt, and Democracy PDF Author: Richard E. Wagner
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 0857934600
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
This timely book reveals that the budget deficits and accumulating debts that plague modern democracies reflect a clash between two rationalities of governance: one of private property and one of common property. The clashing of these rationalities at various places in society creates forms of societal tectonics that play out through budgeting. The book demonstrates that while this clash is an inherent feature of democratic political economy, it can nonetheless be limited through embracing once again a constitution of liberty. Not all commons settings have tragic outcomes, of course, but tragic outcomes loom large in democratic processes because they entail conflict between two very different forms of substantive rationality; the political and market rationalities. These are both orders that contain interactions among participants, but the institutional frameworks that govern those interactions differ, generating democratic budgetary tragedies. Those tragedies, moreover, are inherent in the conflict between the different rationalities and so cannot be eliminated. They can, as this book argues, be reduced by restoring a constitution of liberty in place of the constitution of control that has taken shape throughout the west over the past century. Economists interested in public finance, public policy and political economy along with scholars of political science, public administration, law and political philosophy will find this book intriguing.

The Political Economy of Fiscal Decisions

The Political Economy of Fiscal Decisions PDF Author: Jessica de Wolff
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3642589936
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 159

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Book Description
A ruling party decides each of two periods on the level of public goods which it finances by means of taxation and internal debt. The debt has to be honoured by the government of the second period. Between the two periods elections take place, which may change the ruling party. The book analyzes the fiscal decision of the first government which aims to maximize the long run utility of its representative voter. Conditions under which the government uses debt strategically in order to stay in power are identified. It is also shown how the fiscal decisions hinge on the populations' political structure and its beliefs about the future government.

Rational Expectations and Economic Policy

Rational Expectations and Economic Policy PDF Author: Stanley Fischer
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226251330
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
"Several areas in economics today have unprecedented significance and vitality. Most people would agree that stabilization policy ranks with the highest of these. Continuing inflation and periodic serious acceleration of inflation combined with high and secularly rising unemployment combine to give the area high priority. This book brings us up to date on an extremely lively discussion involving the role of expectations, and more particularly rational expectations, in the conduct of stabilization policy. . . . Anyone interested in the role of government in economics should read this important book."—C. Glyn Williams, The Wall Street Review of Books "This is a most timely and valuable contribution. . . . The contributors and commentators are highly distinguished and the editor has usefully collated comments and the ensuing discussion. Unusually for a conference proceedings the book is well indexed and it is also replete with numerous and up-to-date references. . . . This is the first serious book to examine the rational expectations thesis in any depth, and it will prove invaluable to anyone involved with macroeconomic policy generally and with monetary economics in particular."—G. K. Shaw, The Economic Journal

Rational Expectations

Rational Expectations PDF Author: Graham Keith Shaw
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 150

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Book Description


Readings in Public Choice and Constitutional Political Economy

Readings in Public Choice and Constitutional Political Economy PDF Author: Charles Rowley
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 0387758704
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 617

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Book Description
Public choice is the study of behavior at the intersection of economics and political science. Since the pioneering work of Duncan Black in the 1940s, public choice has developed a rich literature, drawing from such related perspectives as history, philosophy, law, and sociology, to analyze political decision making (by citizen-voters, elected officials, bureaucratic administrators, lobbyists, and other "rational" actors) in social and economic context, with an emphasis on identifying differences between individual goals and collective outcomes. Constitutional political economy provides important insights into the relationship between effective constitutions and the behavior of ordinary political markets. In Readings in Public Choice and Constitutional Political Economy, Charles Rowley and Friedrich Schneider have assembled an international array of leading authors to present a comprehensive and accessible overview of the field and its applications. Covering a wide array of topics, including regulation and antitrust, taxation, trade liberalization, political corruption, interest group behavior, dictatorship, and environmental issues, and featuring biographies of the founding fathers of the field, this volume will be essential reading for scholars and students, policymakers, economists, sociologists, and non-specialist readers interested in the dynamics of political economy.

Political Economy and Public Finance

Political Economy and Public Finance PDF Author: Stanley L. Winer
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 9781843767527
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
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 contribute to a meaningful dialogue between these two groups, in the belief that the future of both political economy and of normative public finance lies somewhere between the two approaches. Some of the specific questions addressed in the book include: does public finance need political economy? Should collective choice play a role in the standard of reference used in normative public finance? What is a 'failure' in a non-market or policy process? And what have we learned about the theory and practice of public finance from three decades of empirical research on public choice? The book also provides a practitioner's view of the political economy of redistribution.

Public Debt as a Form of Public Finance

Public Debt as a Form of Public Finance PDF Author: Richard E. Wagner
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108758339
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 129

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Book Description
Economists commit a category mistake when they treat democratic governments as indebted. Monarchs can be indebted, as can individuals. In contrast, democracies can't truly be indebted. They are financial intermediaries that form a bridge between what are often willing borrowers and forced lenders. The language of public debt is an ideological language that promotes politically expressed desires and is not a scientific language that clarifies the practice of public finance. Economists have gone astray by assuming that a government is just another person whose impulses toward prudent action will restrict recourse to public debt and induce rational political action.

Trimming the Sails

Trimming the Sails PDF Author: Istv n Bencz‚s
Publisher: Central European University Press
ISBN: 9789639776012
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
Fiscal consolidation has significant short-term costs which can dampen economic growth. This widely shared consensus in the literature on political economy has made fiscal adjustment highly unpopular among rational politicians. By critically analyzing the international literature and building on evidence from European countries, Benczes conducts a systematic analysis to find out whether it is possible to experience fiscal consolidation and economic growth at the same time, even in the short run.

The Oxford Handbook of Political Economy

The Oxford Handbook of Political Economy PDF Author: Barry R. Weingast
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199548471
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 1112

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Book Description
Over its lifetime, 'political economy' has had different meanings. This handbook views political economy as a synthesis of the various strands of social science, treating it as the methodology of economics applied to the analysis of political behaviour and institutions.