The right turn in U. S. politics has increased conflict over both ends and means in government budgeting and financial management. Overlapping and competing views of the way the world works drive finance officials’ practice. Taking a new look at public financial management that acknowledges the multiple, competing realities, Government Budgeting and Financial Management in Practice: Logics to Make Sense of Ambiguity examines transaction cost economics and other small government, managed-by-the-market techniques as the latest reincarnation of public budgeting and financial management orthodoxy. Gerald J. Miller reviews new research on the continuing validity of the political dimension of government finance decisions and the multiple, intensely argued constructions of reality the finance official must make sense of. Miller discusses major advances in interpretive approaches to budgeting and finance and how they dominate writing in the broader field of public administration. He also examines the effects of the explosion of information systems, new budget techniques, nonconventional ways of spending, and new technologies. The book uses a question as the motivating force to understand some facets of today’s government budgeting, finance, and financial management: where do the critical assumptions come from to drive financial management? Miller takes the history of reform, developments in the field and the logics finance officials say they use as sources for these assumptions and examines what they reveal about constructions of the government finance world. Exploring new avenues of financial management thinking, the book discusses ambiguity and interpretations that move the unclear preferences, ends, and goals toward consensus. The author identifies an alternative approach to research that explains important facets of financial management. This approach is drawn directly from practice, events and problems in public organizations and from the creedal bent of many political actors in competition.

Microeconomics is the most engaging introductory economics resource available to students today. Using real businesses examples to show how managers use economics to make real decisions every day, the subject is made relevant and meaningful. Each chapter of the text opens with a case study featuring a real business or real business situation, refers to the study throughout the chapter, and concludes with An Inside Look—a news article format which illustrates how a key principle covered in the chapter relates to real business situations or was used by a real company to make a real business decision. Solved problems in every chapter motivate learners to confidently connect with the theory to solve economic problems and analyse current economic events.

"The problem of externalities and efficiency is cited relentlessly in mainstream literature as the great rationale for government intervention. The Austrian School, however, rooted in an understanding of the competitive process, takes another approach: viewing these supposed problems as having market-based solutions. In Efficiency and Externalities in an Open-Ended Universe, author Roy Cordato elucidates the Austrian view and expands it. He relies strongly on the work of Murray Rothbard and Israel Kirzner to address the modern arguments, showing that there is no standard by which we can judge efficiency apart from the market standard, and no way to adjudicate property rights apart from exchange relationships. This is an important contribution to Austrian literature, the most thorough and extensive study on a topic that is generally treated as a blank check for government to run roughshod over market institutions. No serious student of the market process can afford not to absorb the analytics and lessons of this book." -- from Mises Institute website

A study of how public service has changed in this new era of interconnectedness.