The Best Public Finance Books 2025

1. The Debt Delusion: Living Within Our Means and Other Fallacies, Pre-Owned (Paperback)

Pre-Owned - 'Governments should spend no more than their tax income.' Most people in Europe and North America accept this statement as simple common sense. It resonates with the deeply engrained economic metaphors that dominate public discourse, from 'living within your means' to 'balancing the budget' - all necessary, or so conventional wisdom holds, to avoid the dangers of debt, taxation and financial ruin. This book shows how these homely metaphors constitute the 'debt delusion' a set of plausible-sounding yet false ideas that have been used to justify damaging austerity policies. John Weeks debunks these myths, explaining the true story behind public spending, taxation, and debt, and their real function in the management of our economies. He demonstrates that disputes about public finances are not primarily technical matters best left to specialists and experts, as many politicians would have us believe, but rather fundamentally questions about our true political priorities. Requiring no prior economic knowledge, this is an ideal primer for anyone wishing to cut through the rhetoric and misinformation that dominate political debates on economics and become an informed citizen.

The Debt Delusion: Living Within Our Means and Other Fallacies, Pre-Owned (Paperback)

2. Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea [Hardcover - Used]

CONDITION - USED - Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include "From the library of" labels or previous owner inscriptions. Accessories such as CD, codes, toys, may not be included. Conservatives today have succeeded in casting government spending as useless profligacy that has made the economy worse, centering the policy debate in the wake of the financial crisis on draconian budget cuts. We are told that we need to live in an age of austerity since we have all livedbeyond our means and now need to tighten out belts. This view conveniently forgets where all that debt came from. Not from an orgy of government spending, but as the direct result of bailing out, recapitalizing, and adding liquidity to the broken banking system. Through these actions private debtwas rechristened as government debt while those responsible for generating it walked away scot free, placing the blame on the state, and the burden on the taxpayer.That burden now takes the form of a global turn to austerity, the policy of reducing domestic wages and prices to restore competitiveness and balance the budget. The problem, according to political economist Mark Blyth, is that austerity is a very dangerous idea. First of all, it doesn't work. Asthe past two years of trying and countless other historical examples show, while it makes sense for any one state to try and cut its way to growth, it simply cannot work when all states try it simultaneously: all we do is shrink the economy. Second, it relies upon those who didn't make the mess toclean it up, which is always bad politics. Third, it rests upon a tenuous and thin body of evidence and argumentation that acts more to prop up dead economic ideas and preserve astonishingly skewed income and wealth distributions than to restore prosperity for all. In Austerity: The History of aDangerous Idea, Blyth demolishes the conventional wisdom, marshaling an army of facts to demand that we recognize austerity for what it is, and what it costs us.

Austerity : The History of a Dangerous Idea, Used [Hardcover]

3. The New Politics of the Budgetary Process, Used [Paperback]

Among the new class of inductees into the "Longman Classics in Political Science" Series, this Fifth Edition updates and revises Aaron Wildavsky's classic exposition of how federal budget decisions are made and how formal budget institutions and processes are interwoven with political dynamics. This text explains how the federal budget process has evolved and analyzes recent developments in key areas: entitlements, defense, deficit/surplus and reforms. Its critical and stimulating approach and clear, readable explanations make it essential reading for students of politics and public administration, as well as anyone trying to understand a decision-making process that affects virtually all Americans.

The New Politics of the Budgetary Process, Used [Paperback]

4. The Politics of Public Budgeting: Getting and Spending, Borrowing and Balancing, Used [Paperback]

Irene Rubin assesses the political jockeying that influences the US governmental budgeting process and provides details on all levels of governmental budgeting - state, local and federal.

The Politics of Public Budgeting : Getting and Spending, Borrowing and Balancing, Used [Paperback]

5. Readings in Public Finance, Used [Paperback]

This text serves as a useful supplement to public finance textbooks, helping students to build and weigh arguments, to identify strengths and weaknesses of opposing viewpoints, and ultimately to draw their own conclusions. Its two main objectives are to present policy issues, allowing students an opportunity to apply the theory discussed in class, and to show students how material is developed in the literature by having them read some of the classics and contemporary contributions. The readings in this book are not tied to any one text. The authors make certain, via a correlation guide in the front of the text, that each selection corresponds to at least one chapter in each of the major textbooks and that no text chapter is without a supplementary reading.

Readings in Public Finance, Used [Paperback]

6. Casebook In Public Budgeting And Financial Management [Paperback - Used]

CONDITION - USED - Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include "From the library of" labels or previous owner inscriptions. Accessories such as CD, codes, toys, may not be included. Casebook In Public Budgeting And Financial Management by Walker, A. Grayson, III; Carol W. Lewis

Casebook In Public Budgeting And Financial Management [Paperback - Used]

7. The Debt System: A History of Sovereign Debts and Their Repudiation [Hardcover - Used]

CONDITION - USED - Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include "From the library of" labels or previous owner inscriptions. Accessories such as CD, codes, toys, may not be included. For as long as there have been rich nations and poor nations, debt has been a powerful force for maintaining the unequal relations between them. Treated as sacrosanct, immutable, and eternally binding, it has become the yoke of choice for imperial powers in the post-colonial world to enforce their subservience over the global south. In this ground-breaking history, renowned economist ?%ric Toussaint argues for a radical reversal of this balance of accounts through the repudiation of sovereigndebt. ?%ric Toussaint, Senior Lecturer at the University of Li?ge, is President of Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debts, Belgium. He is the co-author ofDebt, the IMF, and the World Bank, Sixty Questions, Sixty Answers.

The Debt System : A History of Sovereign Debts and Their Repudiation, Used [Hardcover]

8. Public Finance and Public Choice : Analytical Perspectives, Used [Hardcover]

The authors critically analyze varying approaches to public finance, contrasting the orthodox social optimality with the alternative public choice school. Both schools of thought are given full but critical attention. As well as the two schools mentioned above, further approaches, drawn from other social science disciplines, are explained.

Public Finance and Public Choice : Analytical Perspectives, Used [Hardcover]

9. Public Sector Economics [Hardcover - Used]

CONDITION - USED - Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include "From the library of" labels or previous owner inscriptions. Accessories such as CD, codes, toys, may not be included. A comprehensive and penetrating exposition of public sector economic theory in a clean and elegant format. This book provides a balanced and thoroughview of mainstream concepts with a strong theoretical focus throughout, and features a unique bank of up-to-date applications on the companion website to make the theory in the book come alive. Website: www.palgrave.com/economics/tresch Key points: 1. Compact: At just under 500 pages, the book is well over a hundred pages shorter than its rivals. 2. Economical: With a suggested price to students of $79.99, this textbook is 40% less expensive than the leading competitors Separate chapters on: Applying the Social Welfare Function Decreasing Cost Services Public Assistance Social Insurance Taxes, Transfers, and Private Information Three chapters on Fiscal Federalism A unique epilogue that considers how Public Finance as a discipline may be affected by the rise of Behavioral Economics"

Public Sector Economics, Used [Hardcover]

10. Financial Management in the Public Sector : Tools, Applications and Cases, Used [Paperback]

The new edition of this popular book provides a step-by-step guide on how to use financial management and budgeting tools in the public sector. The book features a practical, case-study approach, and includes plentiful exercises and examples. It is designed as a textbook for courses on public financial management or public budgeting that focus on the application of budgeting and financial management tools. Public service professionals will also benefit from this handy primer.

Financial Management in the Public Sector : Tools, Applications and Cases, Used [Paperback]