Many important economic and political debates, today, refer to the nature and the role of the State. In order to better understand them, this book is an attempt to place most of these debates, some schools of thought and central concepts in an historical perspective.

Part 1: Introduction 1. The Challenge of the History of Public Economics Gilbert Faccarello and Richard Sturn 2. Public Economics and History of Economic Thought: A Personal Memoir Alan Peacock 3. Two Unpublished Papers from the 1950s Alan Peacock and Jack Wiseman Part 2: England 4. Jeremy Bentham, the French Revolution, and the Political Economy of Representation (1788 to 1789) Marco E.L. Guidi 5. Collective Interest Versus Individual Interest in Bentham's Felicific Calculus: Questioning Welfarism and Fairness Antoinette Baujard 6. Pareto, Pigou and Third-Party Consumption: Divergent Approaches to Welfare Theory with Implications for the Study of Public Finance Michael McLure Part 3: France 7. Progressive Indirect Taxation and Social Justice in Eighteenth-Century France: Forbonnais and Graslin's Fiscal System Arnaud Orain 8. History of Public Economics: The Historical French School Serge-Christophe Kolm 9. Bold Ideas: French Liberal Economists and the State: Say to Leroy-Beaulieu Gilbert Faccarello 10. Utility and Justice: French Liberal Economists in the Nineteenth Century Nathalie Sigot 11. The Foundations of Justice in Jules Dupuit's Thought Philippe Poinsot 12. Gustave Fauveau's Contribution to Fiscal Theory Claire Silvant 13. Non-Welfarism Avant la Lettre: Alfred Fouille¿e's Political Economy of Justice Laurent Dobuzinskis Part 4: Germany, Italy 14. Natural Law as Inspiration to Adolph Wagner's Theory of Public Intervention Daniele Corado and Stefano Solari 15. The Idea of State in the Italian Tradition of Public Finance Amedeo Fossati 16. Public Expenditure in Italian Public Finance Theory Domenicantonio Fausto 17. Common Welfare versus the Spirit of Private Enterprise: The Experience of Italian Municipalization from 1880 to 1930 Piero Bini and Daniela Parisi Part 5: Public Economics after World War II 18. The Residual Character of Externalities Maurice Lagueux 19. The Three Roles of the 'Coase Theorem' in Coase's Works Elodie Bertrand 20. Rawls's Justice Theory and its Relations to the Concept of Merit Goods Ragip Ege and Herrade Igersheim 21. Get by with a Little Help from My Friends: A Recent History of Charitable Organisations in Economic Theory Alasdair Rutherford 22. Government and the Provision of Public Goods: From Equilibrium Models to Mechanism Design Monique Florenzano 23. Public Economics after Neoliberalism: A Theoretical-Historical Perspective Yahya M. Madra and Fikret Adaman

Gilbert Faccarello is professor of economics at Panthéon-Assas University / Sorbonne Universités, Paris, France, and a co-founder and co-editor of The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought. He has published extensively on the history of political economy, especially on Ricardian, Neo-Ricardian and Marxian economics, and French economic thought (18th and 19th centuries).

Richard Sturn is Director of the Institute of Public Economics at the University of Graz, Austria, and Deputy Chair of the Graz Schumpeter Centre. He has published widely on public goods, tax and transfer systems, economic philosophy and the history of economic thought.