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Preface | |
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Introduction | |
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The Public Sector in a Mixed Economy | |
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The Economic Role of Government | |
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What or Who is the Government? | |
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Thinking Like a Public Sector Economist | |
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Disagreements Among Economists | |
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Review and Practice | |
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The Public Sector in the United States | |
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Types of Government Activity | |
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Gauging the Size of the Public Sector | |
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Government Revenues | |
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Deficit Financing | |
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Playing Tricks With the Data on Government Activities | |
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Review and Practice | |
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Fundamentals of Welfare Economics | |
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Market Efficiency | |
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The Invisible Hand of Competitive Markets | |
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Welfare Economics and Pareto Efficiency | |
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Analyzing Economic Efficiency | |
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Review and Practice | |
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Market Failure | |
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Property Rights and Contract Enforcement | |
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Market Failures and the Role of Government | |
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Redistribution and Merit Goods | |
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Two Perspectives on the Role of Government | |
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Review and Practice | |
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Efficiency and Equity | |
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Efficiency and Distribution Trade-Offs | |
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Analyzing Social Choices | |
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Social Choices in Practice | |
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Three Approaches to Social Choices | |
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Review and Practice | |
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Alternative Measures of Inequality | |
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The Lorenz Curve | |
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The Dalton-Atkinson Measure | |
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Public Expenditure Theory | |
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Public Goods and Publicly Provided Private Goods | |
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Public Goods | |
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Publicly Provided Private Goods | |
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Efficiency Conditions for Public Goods | |
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Efficient Government as a Public Good | |
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Review and Practice | |
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The Leftover Curve | |
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Measuring the Welfare Cost of user Fees | |
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Public Choice | |
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Public Mechanisms for Allocating Resources | |
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Alternatives for Determining Public Goods Expenditures | |
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Politics and Economics | |
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Review and Practice | |
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New Preference-Revelation Mechanisms | |
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Public Production and Bureaucracy | |
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Natural Monopoly: Public Production of Private Goods | |
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Comparison of Efficiency in the Public and Private Sectors | |
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Sources of Inefficiency in the Public Sector | |
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Corporatization | |
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A Growing Consensus on Government's Role in Production | |
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Review and Practice | |
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Externalities and the Environment | |
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The Problem of Externalities | |
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Private Solutions to Externalities | |
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Public Sector Solutions to Externalities | |
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Protecting the Environment: the Role of Government in Practice | |
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Review and Practice | |
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Expenditure Programs | |
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The Analysis of Expenditure Policy | |
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Need for Program | |
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Market Failures | |
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Alternative Forms of Government Intervention | |
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The Importance of Particular Design Features | |
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Private Sector Responses to Government Programs | |
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Efficiency Consequences | |
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Distributional Consequences | |
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Equity-Efficiency Trade-Offs | |
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Public Policy Objectives | |
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Political Process | |
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Review and Practice | |
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Cost-Benefit Analysis | |
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Private Cost-Benefit Analysis | |
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Social Cost-Benefit Analysis | |
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Consumer Surplus and the Decision to Undertake a Project | |
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Measuring Non-Monetized Costs and Benefits | |
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Shadow Prices and Market Prices | |
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Discount Rate for Social Cost-Benefit Analysis | |
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The Evaluation of Risk | |
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Distributional Considerations | |
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Cost Effectiveness | |
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Review and Practice | |
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Health Care | |
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The Health Care System in the United States | |
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Rationale For a Role of Government in the Health Care Sector | |
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Reforming Health Care | |
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Review and Practice | |
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Defense and Technology | |
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Defense Expenditures | |
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Increasing the Efficiency of the Defense Department | |
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Defense Conversion | |
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Technology | |
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Review and Practice | |
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Social Insurance | |
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The Social Security System | |
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Social Security, Private Insurance, and Market Failures | |
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Should Social Security be Reformed? | |
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Reforming Social Security | |
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Review and Practice | |
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Welfare Programs and the Redistribution of Income | |
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A Brief Description of Major U.S. Welfare Programs | |
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Rationale for Government Welfare Programs | |
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Analytic Issues | |
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Welfare Reform: Integration of Programs | |
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The Welfare Reform Bill of 1996 | |
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Concluding Remarks | |
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Review and Practice | |
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Education | |
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The Structure of Education in the United States | |
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Why is Education Publicly Provided and Publicly Financed? | |
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Issues and Controversies in Educational Policy | |
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Aid to Higher Education | |
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Review and Practice | |
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How Should Public Educational Funds be Allocated? | |
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Taxation: Theory | |
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Introduction to Taxation | |
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Background | |
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The Five Desirable Characteristics of any Tax System | |
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General Framework for Choosing Among Tax Systems | |
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Review and Practice | |
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Tax Incidence | |
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Tax Incidence in Competitive Markets | |
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Tax Incidence of Environments Without Perfect Competition | |
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Equivalent Taxes | |
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Other Factors Affecting Tax Incidence | |
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Incidence of Taxes in the United States | |
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Review and Practice | |
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Comparison of the Effects of an Ad Valorem and Specific Commodity Tax on a Monopolist | |
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Taxation and Economic Efficiency | |
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Effect of Taxes Borne by Consumers | |
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Quantifying the Distortions | |
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Effects of Taxes Borne by Producers | |
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Taxation of Savings | |
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Taxation of Labor Income | |
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Measuring the Effects of Taxes on Labor Supplied | |
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Review and Practice | |
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Optimal Taxation | |
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Two Fallacies of Optimal Taxation | |
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Optimal and Pareto Efficient Taxation | |
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Differential Taxation | |
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Taxes on Producers | |
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Review and Practice | |
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Deriving Ramsey Taxes on Commodities | |
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Derivation of Ramsey Formula for Linear Demand Schedule | |
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Taxation of Capital | |
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Should Capital be Taxed? | |
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Effects on Savings and Investment | |
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Impact on Risk Taking | |
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Measuring Changes in Asset Values | |
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Review and Practice | |
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Taxation in the United States | |
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The Personal Income Tax | |
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Outline of the U.S. Income Tax | |
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Principles Behind the U.S. Income Tax | |
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Practical Problems in Implementing an Income Tax System | |
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Special Treatment of Capital Income | |
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Concluding Comments | |
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Review and Practice | |
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The Corporation Income Tax | |
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The Basic Features of the Corporation Income Tax | |
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The Incidence of the Corporation Income Tax and its Effect on Efficiency | |
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Depreciation | |
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Combined Effects of Individual and Corporate Income Tax | |
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The Corporation Tax as Economic Policy | |
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Taxation of Multinationals | |
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Should There be a Corporation Income Tax? | |
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Review and Practice | |
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A Student's Guide to Tax Avoidance | |
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Principles of Tax Avoidance | |
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Tax Shelters | |
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Tax Reform and Tax Avoidance | |
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Equity, Efficiency, and Tax Reform | |
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Review and Practice | |
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Reform of the Tax System | |
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Fairness | |
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Efficiency | |
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Simplifying the Tax Code and Reducing Administrative Costs | |
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Transition Issues and the Politics of Tax Reform | |
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Tax Reforms for the Twenty-First Century | |
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Review and Practice | |
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Further Issues | |
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Fiscal Federalism | |
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The Division of Responsibilities | |
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Principles of Fiscal Federalism | |
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Production Versus Finance | |
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Review and Practice | |
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State and Local Taxes and Expenditures | |
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Tax Incidence Applied to Local Public Finance | |
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Capitalization | |
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Public Choice at the Local Level | |
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Problems of Multi-Jurisdictional Taxation | |
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Review and Practice | |
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Deficit Finance | |
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The U.S. Deficit Problem Since the 1980s | |
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Consequences of Government Deficits | |
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Improving the Budgetary Process | |
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The Long-Term Problem: Entitlements and the Aged | |
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Review and Practice | |