Drawing on a series of colorful examples from the ancient world, he illustrates some of the many ways in which actions can in fact be understood as public or private."--BOOK JACKET.

Louis, are in fact financing their own public goods and services in accordance with this theory. For such communities to rise and prosper, the author contends, government must eliminate zoning and many other restrictions, as well as the taxation of private services.

Why Democracy Needs Public Goods provides arguments for a new theoretical perspective in favor of public goods. Kallhoff details the benefits of public goods for any democratic state: they contribute to social inclusion, help generate the public forum, and foster national identity. These arguments are supplemented by reconsidering major counter-arguments against this approach, both from political theory and from theories on public finance. Political philosophers, political theorists, and political economists will benefit most from this perspective.

This book presents an updated and expanded discussion of theoretical treatment of externalities (i.e. uncompensated interdependencies), public goods, and club goods.

A wide-ranging survey of the theory and evidence on public goods, presenting the main literature on public goods, both theoretical and empirical, in a systematic manner. The breadth and depth of the book's coverage extends the existing literature in many ways.

Public goods are typically defined only in reference to the good itself but, as this book argues, the public goods can be better understood if contextual variables are incorporated. This book discusses the production and provision of public goods. It asserts that changes related to public goods are better understood if the category of goods are not decided solely by the properties of the good itself. We also need to focus on how the enabled utility of a good is influenced by the production and the provision of the good. The book opens with a brief introduction to common conceptions of public goods and a review of the existing literature - highlighting the limitations of current definitions of public goods. It presents a new multi-layered approach to public goods. This has implications for the discourse on public goods and for our understanding of the societal and environmental impact of public goods. The implications are illustrated in several areas; public goods in ancient history, privatization, innovation, competitiveness and prices, democracy and political standards, and economic growth. The book provides a provocative argument for a new way to analyze public goods which will appeal to scholars and students interested in the economic analysis of public goods, arguments regarding the privatizing or nationalizing of production and services, and method of modelling and measuring sustainable business activities.

The book the American Prospect calls “an essential resource for future reformers on how not to govern,” by America’s leading defender of the public interest and a bestselling historian “An essential read for those who want to fight the assault on public goods and the commons.” —Naomi Klein A sweeping exposé of the ways in which private interests strip public goods of their power and diminish democracy, the hardcover edition of The Privatization of Everything elicited a wide spectrum of praise: Kirkus Reviews hailed it as “a strong, economics-based argument for restoring the boundaries between public goods and private gains,” Literary Hub featured the book on a Best Nonfiction list, calling it “a far-reaching, comprehensible, and necessary book,” and Publishers Weekly dubbed it a “persuasive takedown of the idea that the private sector knows best.” From Diane Ravitch (“an important new book about the dangers of privatization”) to Heather McGhee (“a well-researched call to action”), the rave reviews mirror the expansive nature of the book itself, covering the impact of privatization on every aspect of our lives, from water and trash collection to the justice system and the military. Cohen and Mikaelian also demonstrate how citizens can—and are—wresting back what is ours: A Montana city took back its water infrastructure after finding that they could do it better and cheaper. Colorado towns fought back well-funded campaigns to preserve telecom monopolies and hamstring public broadband. A motivated lawyer fought all the way to the Supreme Court after the state of Georgia erected privatized paywalls around its legal code. “Enlightening and sobering” (Rosanne Cash), The Privatization of Everything connects the dots across a wide range of issues and offers what Cash calls “a progressive voice with a firm eye on justice [that] can carefully parse out complex issues for those of us who take pride in citizenship.”

Who and what a government taxes, and how the government spends the money collected, are questions of primary concern to governments large and small, national and local. When public revenues pay for high-quality infrastructure and social services, citizens thrive and crises are averted. When public revenues are inadequate to provide those goods, inequality thrives and communities can verge into unrest—as evidenced by the riots during Greece’s financial meltdown and by the needless loss of life in Haiti’s collapse in the wake of the earthquake. In The Public Good and the Brazilian State, Anne G. Hanley assembles an economic history of public revenues as they developed in nineteenth-century Brazil. Specifically, Hanley investigates the financial life of the municipality—a district comparable to the county in the United States—to understand how the local state organized and prioritized the provision of public services, what revenues paid for those services, and what happened when the revenues collected failed to satisfy local needs. Through detailed analyses of municipal ordinances, mayoral reports, citizen complaints, and financial documents, Hanley sheds light on the evolution of public finance and its effect on the early economic development of Brazilian society. This deeply researched book offers valuable insights for anyone seeking to better understand how municipal finance informs histories of inequality and underdevelopment.

'A brilliant critical and fresh look at the public choice school of thought.' - Paul Streeten This book challenges theories of public goods, public enterprise and public choice on three fronts. Government action reflects wider interests and commitments than just the material self-interest assumed as primary by the three theories. Government contributes to the productivity and quality of the modern mixed economy in ways not captured by theories stressing the inherent superiority of private markets. Lastly, old and new ideas within established traditions of political thought justify government action beyond the libertarian argument for limited government.

The book's intent is to take the concept of global public goods out of the rarified circle of micro-economists and pass it as a practical tool into the hands of those who on a daily basis struggle with global policy challenges and crises.