From Continental Public Finance to Public Choice

Mapping Continuity

Originally published in History of Political Economy

To define public finance as the study of the economic activities of governments would command consensus among fiscal scholars, for all agree that government comprises the object that fiscal scholars study. That consensus dissolves, however, on closer inspection.

To define public finance as the study of the economic activities of governments would command consensus among fiscal scholars, for all agree that government comprises the object that fiscal scholars study. That consensus dissolves, however, on closer inspection. What appears instead are two relatively distinct analytical orientations toward fiscal inquiry, reflecting different conceptualizations of the relationship between the polity and the economy.

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