Public Finance and Public Policy

by Jonathan Gruber

Book Overview

We are currently engaged in the most fundamental debate about the role of government in decades, and who better than Jonathan Gruber to guide students through the particulars in the new edition of his... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1429219491
• ISBN13: 9781429219495
• Release Date: December 2009
• Publisher: Worth Publishers
• Length: 700 Pages
• Weight: 3.79 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 8.1" x 10.3"

Customer Reviews

Textbook highlights contemporary issues and contemporary research

An excellent textbook for an upper level course for economics majors. There is a lot of inertia in textbook choice, but I was finally convinced to adopt Gruber's book when I served as the Lecturer for Stanford University's upper-level seminar in Public Economics. The textbook has high production values and of particular note is its timeliness in covering both current policy issues (Social Security Reform, Fundamental Tax Reform, Education, etc.) and current public economics research (Political Economy, Behavioral Economics, Contract Theory, etc). Most textbooks on the market offer a very dated view of Public Economics, especially in terms of current research. The book explains the findings using intuition and graphs, but provides mathematical detail in mathematical supplements for the ambitious reader. The accompanying website also provides impressive PowerPoint slides. The student response to the textbook was uniformly positive. The only downsides are the hefty price tag, worsened by the limited secondary market, and for those who want a more mathematically rigorous treatment in courses that require calculus and optimization, the included supplements were helpful, but still limited.

My Dad's book rocks!

My Dad's book is awesome! Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. My name is Sam Gruber, and my Dad is Jonathan Gruber. Seriously. I'm not kidding. I swear. If you don't believe me, ask him. Anyway, the reason I liked this book is because he used my name in it 25 times! (he counted.) I also liked the colors. I really like the cover, because I helped my Dad pick it. All in all, my Dad can write very well, and if he doesn't write another book, well, I'll make him.