Whereas in philosophy David Hume was long regarded as a negative thinker to be criticized rather than read, many thinkers interested in social and economic theory from Adam Smith onwards found key concepts, distinctions and problems as developed by Hume useful and inspiring. This applies not...

On the basis of F.B.W. Hermann's Staatswirthschaftliche Untersuchungen and of major German, Austrian and Swedish contributions to public economics, two specific claims with regard to the Germanic influence in the development of public expenditure theory are put forward in this paper. It is...

This paper is concerned with the foundations of modern Public Economics, in particular of concepts related to the justification of public activities and the properties of public economy mechanisms. As a first approximation, Public Economics a la Musgrave can be understood as a synthesis of...