This chapter reviews the theory of the voluntary public and private redistribution of wealth elaborated by economic analysis in the last forty years or so. The central object of the theory is altruistic gift-giving, construed as benevolent voluntary redistribution of income or wealth. The theory...

We collect information about more than 5,000 Prussian politicians, digitize administrative data on the provision of health-promoting public goods, and gather local-level information on workers’ movements to study why elites in industrializing countries implement policies that improve the...

Procurement professionals will increasingly be asked to play an important role in adapting to and mitigating the effects of climate change. Unfortunately, we don't have time to waste, either feeling hopeless or waiting for changes to the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and subsequent...

As an industry, higher education shows some striking anomalies. It is the only important industry in the United States that has been increasingly socialized in recent decades: the market share of public institutions grew, roughly, from 50 percent to 80 percent over the last half of the twentieth...

This chapter concludes a book that grew out of a 2015 conference hosted by the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law, which brought together defense industry leaders, academics, and lawyers to discuss ethical challenges to the defense industry. Authors from the...

The paper examines the relationship between globalization and public administration through economic theory principles and an example. Starting from the consideration of early concerns about globalization, it argues that although the size of government has rarely declined, its power has been...

The design of fully funded pension plans is affected by governance and incentive problems, as underlined by the experience of several countries. The analytic perspective of contract theory allows to detect the nature of such problems: pension-fund managers have strong incentives to manipulate...

When credit markets to finance investment in the human capital of young people are missing, the competitive equilibrium allocation is inefficient. When generations overlap, this failure can be mitigated by properly designed social institutions such as public education and public pensions. We...

<OL><LI>Some people make great claims about the advantages to be gained from greater reliance on the private sector for the provision of social protection. Many of the claims for great macroeconomic advantages do not stand up to scrutiny. However, there is some reason to hope that private provision...</li></ol>