In this first lecture in honour of Amartya Sen, I examine the lessons that can be drawn from <italic>The Idea of Justice</italic> for public economics and the extent to which public economics has already moved in the direction advocated by Sen. More specifically, I focus on the current fiscal austerity...

These two volumes bring together key articles in the field of modern public finance, a field which has seen a major revival of interest in the past 20 years. The articles reprinted are among those which have shaped its recent development, and include contributions by no fewer than seven Nobel...

Using taxation statistics, we estimate the income share held by top income groups in New Zealand over the period 1921-2005. We find that the income share of the richest fell during the 1930s, rose again after the Second World War, and steadily declined from the late-1950s until the mid-1980s....

This paper reports on the recent evolution of the distribution of income and income poverty in five European countries: Belgium, France, Ireland, Italy and the UK. The aim is to demonstrate the value of a unified perspective by asking the same questions of evidence from a range of sources. The...