Studies in the History of Public Economics

Many important economic and political debates today refer to the nature and the role of the State: should governments intervene in the economy and interfere with the operation of markets? In which occasions, and how? In order to better understand these questions and the controversies they have raised, this book re-considers the debates crucial for the issues at stake, the most important schools of thought, and the central concepts in an historical perspective. After a tribute to Sir Alan Peacock and the first publication of two hitherto unpublished papers written in the 1950s, the chapters focus on important developments that occurred in Europe during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The final part includes contributions on public economics after World War II, focusing on concepts such as merit goods, externalities and the “Coase theorem”.

This book was originally published as a special issue of The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought.

Gilbert Faccarello is professor of economics at Panthéon-Assas University / Sorbonne Universités, Paris, France, and a co-founder and co-editor of The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought. He has published extensively on the history of political economy, especially on Ricardian, Neo-Ricardian and Marxian economics, and French economic thought (18th and 19th centuries).

Richard Sturn is Director of the Institute of Public Economics at the University of Graz, Austria, and Deputy Chair of the Graz Schumpeter Centre. He has published widely on public goods, tax and transfer systems, economic philosophy and the history of economic thought.