State and Local Public Finance provides a comprehensive and sophisticated analysis of state and local government public finance practices and issues, using the basic tools of economics. This fifth edition maintains its focus on key local services such as education, health care, and transportation and brings in new coverage of land use and housing, applications from behavioral economics, and more international comparisons.
This textbook provides an examination and analysis of public finance practices and problems in a federal fiscal system, focusing on the fiscal behavior and policies of state and local governments. Modern economic theory is applied to examine the way key institutions are used to produce and finance services and to provide evaluation of alternative policies.
This stalwart text will continue to be invaluable reading for those who study public finance, local government finance, urban economics, public policy, and public administration.
PART I Introduction
1 Why study state and local government finance?
2 Microeconomic analysis: market effiiency and market failure
PART II Public choice and fiscal federalism
3 Demand for state and local government goods and services
4 Public choice without mobility: voting
5 Public choice through mobility
6 Organization of subnational government
PART III Provision of state and local goods and services
7 Supply of state and local goods and services
8 Pricing of government goods: user charges
9 Intergovernmental grants
10 Capital investment, borrowing, and debt
PART IV Revenue for state and local governments
11 Principles of tax analysis
12 The property tax
13 Sales and excise taxes
14 Individual income taxes
15 Business taxes
16 Revenue from government monopoly and regulation
PART V Applications and policy analysis
17 Education
18 Transportation
19 Health and welfare
20 Economic development
Biography
Ronald C. Fisher is Professor of Economics at Michigan State University, where he specializes in the finance of state and local governments and intergovernmental fiscal relations.
