Efficiency, Equality and Public Policy: With a Case for Higher Public Spending

Efficiency, Equality and Public Policy provides compelling arguments for the exclusive concern with efficiency in all specific areas of public economic policy, leaving the objective of equality to be achieved through the general tax/transfer system. Public policies, the author argues, should ultimately maximize the sum of individual welfares which should be individual happiness rather than preferences. The flip side is that relative-income and environmental disruption effects cause a bias in favor of private spending which is no longer conducive to social happiness.