This book provides compelling arguments for the exclusive concern with efficiency ('a dollar is a dollar') in all specific areas of public economic policy, leaving the objective of equality to be achieved through the general tax/transfer system. Public policies should ultimately maximize the sum of individual welfares which should be individual happiness rather than preferences. Relative-income and environmental disruption effects cause a bias in favour of private spending which is no longer conducive to happiness socially. Welfare can be increased more by higher public spending on research and environmental protection, including the perfection of the techniques of brain stimulation to increase happiness.

The story of how economic reasoning came to dominate Washington between the 1960s and 1980s—and why it continues to constrain progressive ambitions today For decades, Democratic politicians have frustrated progressives by tinkering around the margins of policy while shying away from truly ambitious change. What happened to bold political vision on the left, and what shrunk the very horizons of possibility? In Thinking like an Economist, Elizabeth Popp Berman tells the story of how a distinctive way of thinking—an “economic style of reasoning”—became dominant in Washington between the 1960s and the 1980s and how it continues to dramatically narrow debates over public policy today. Introduced by liberal technocrats who hoped to improve government, this way of thinking was grounded in economics but also transformed law and policy. At its core was an economic understanding of efficiency, and its advocates often found themselves allied with Republicans and in conflict with liberal Democrats who argued for rights, equality, and limits on corporate power. By the Carter administration, economic reasoning had spread throughout government policy and laws affecting poverty, healthcare, antitrust, transportation, and the environment. Fearing waste and overspending, liberals reined in their ambitions for decades to come, even as Reagan and his Republican successors argued for economic efficiency only when it helped their own goals. A compelling account that illuminates what brought American politics to its current state, Thinking like an Economist also offers critical lessons for the future. With the political left resurgent today, Democrats seem poised to break with the past—but doing so will require abandoning the shibboleth of economic efficiency and successfully advocating new ways of thinking about policy.

Discussing fundamental issues on the ethical foundation of public economic policy, this paper arrives at conclusions that will surprise most economists. While reviewing relevant contributions, it argues for happiness as the ultimate objective, in contrast to economists' preference for preference. It sanctions utilitarianism and the apparently extremely right-wing principle of 'treating a dollar as a dollar' whomsoever it goes to, except in the general tax/transfer system. This principle largely frees us from the paradox of interpersonal cardinal utility - the practical difficulty of obtaining interpersonal cardinal utilities necessary for social choice. The arguments are based on compelling ethical and positive logic, not dogmatic ideology.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.There is a broad consensus across European states and the EU that social and economic inequality is a problem that needs to be addressed. Yet inequality policy is notoriously complex and contested. This book approaches the issue from two linked perspectives. First, a focus on functional requirementshighlights what policymakers think they need to deliver policy successfully, and the gap between their requirements and reality. We identify this gap in relation to the theory and practice of policy learning, and to multiple sectors, to show how it manifests in health, education, and gender equitypolicies. Second, a focus on territorial politics highlights how the problem is interpreted at different scales, subject to competing demands to take responsibility. This contestation and spread of responsibilities contributes to different policy approaches across spatial scales. We conclude thatgovernments promote many separate equity initiatives, across territories and sectors, without knowing if they are complementary or contradictory. This outcome could reflect the fact that ambiguous policy problems and complex policymaking processes are beyond the full knowledge or control ofgovernments. It could also be part of a strategy to make a rhetorically radical case while knowing that they will translate into safer policies. It allows them to replace debates on values, regarding whose definition of equity matters and which inequalities to tolerate, with more technicaldiscussions of policy processes. Governments may be offering new perspectives on spatial justice or new ways to reduce political attention to inequalities.

Using a unique dataset based on income tax records, authors Kathleen Day and Stanley Winer examine the factors influencing the decision to migrate within Canada, paying special attention to the role of regional variation in the generosity of public policies including unemployment insurance, taxation, and public expenditure. The influence of extraordinary events such as the election of a separatist government in Quebec and the closure of the east coast cod fishery is also considered. They look at why we ought to be concerned about public policies that interfere with market-based incentives to move, provide a wealth of information on interregional differences in public policies and market conditions, and examine what other researchers have discovered about fiscally induced migration, culminating in a discussion of the likely impact of various policy changes on migration and provincial unemployment rates. The authors' assessment of the lessons to be learned from their own and past research on policy-induced migration in Canada will be of interest to students of migration and policy makers alike.

This handbook deals with many aspects of public policy evaluation: including methods; examples; professionalism studies; perspectives; concepts; substance; theory applications; dispute resolution; interdisciplinary interaction.