This book discusses the rationale for correcting market prices in the evaluation of public investments. It also aims at covering techniques of project appraisals, such as the effects method, cost efficiency techniques, multicriteria analysis, and related logical frameworks.

This book presents fifteen papers selected from the papers read at the 53rd Congress of the International Institute of Public Finance held at Kyoto, Japan, in August 1997. Although organized under the general title of Public Finance and Public Investment, the Congress covered a wide range of topics in Public Finance. One of the highlights of the Congress was a historic and brilliant debate between two of the greatest living authorities in the area of public finance, Professors James M. Buchanan and Richard A. Musgrave, on the nature of the welfare state and its future. Part I of this book is concerned with this debate and its empirical counterpart. James M. Buchanan (Chapter 1) warns that the welfare state will be unsustainable unless it preserves generality or at least quasi generality in welfare programs. The introduction of overt discrimination in welfare programs through means testing and targeting can only diminish public support. He argues that a political version of the "tragedy of commons" will emerge if and when identifiable interest groups recognize the prospects of particularized gains as promised by discriminatory tax or transfer payments. Faced with mounting pressure from entitlement-like claims of special interest groups against public revenues on one hand and equally strong pressure against further tax burdens on the other, political leaders are attracted to solutions that single out the most vulnerable targets. Distributional disagreement among classes will then become a major source of political discourse and an impetus for class conflict.

Laying a solid foundation of economic facts and ideas, this book provides a comprehensive look at the critical role of public capital in development.

Many fear that efforts to address inequality will undermine the economy as a whole. But the opposite is true: rising inequality has become a drag on growth and an impediment to market competition. Heather Boushey breaks down the problem and argues that we can preserve our nation's economic traditions while promoting shared economic growth.

Welfare economics, scope and performance of government, externalities, public goods, cost-benefit analysis, subsidies economize on spending without losing effectiveness by modifying the conceptual framework guiding state expenditures. The familiar framework says that state intervention is justified when the spending provides public goods or when the intervention addresses externalities, provided the social return is above a threshold. This paper argues that another consideration needs to be brought into the mix - whether, in spite of the externalities, the private sector has an incentive to undertake the activity. It is argued that these two considerations together define a more efficient framework under which to justify state intervention. According to this modified framework, even a benign state interested in social welfare would not in fact address every externality nor necessarily select expenditures with the highest social returns. These points are summarized in a graph which is then used to analyze policy rules, subsidies and effective interaction between the state and the private sector. It is hoped that this paper points to the kind of information that needs to be collected and acted upon so that states may achieve their goals more effectively.

Public investment, and particularly infrastructure investment, is important for sustainable economic growth and development as well as public service provision. However, it is also vulnerable to capture and corruption.

Corruption, particularly political or “grand” corruption, distorts the entire decision-making process connected with public investment projects. The degree of distortions is higher with weaker auditing institutions. The evidence presented shows that higher corruption is associated with (i) higher public investment; (ii) lower government revenues; (iii) lower expenditures on operations and maintenance; and (iv) lower quality of public infrastructure. The evidence also shows that corruption increases public investment while reducing its productivity. These are five channels through which corruption lowers growth. An implication is that economists should be more restrained in their praise of high public sector investment, especially in countries with high corruption.

This paper provides new evidence of the macroeconomic effects of public investment in advanced economies. Using public investment forecast errors to identify the causal effect of government investment in a sample of 17 OECD economies since 1985 and model simulations, the paper finds that increased public investment raises output, both in the short term and in the long term, crowds in private investment, and reduces unemployment. Several factors shape the macroeconomic effects of public investment. When there is economic slack and monetary accommodation, demand effects are stronger, and the public-debt-to-GDP ratio may actually decline. Public investment is also more effective in boosting output in countries with higher public investment efficiency and when it is financed by issuing debt.