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Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- Introduction -- 1. Broad Theories -- 1.1. Fiscal Functions: An Overview -- 1.2. The Role of Government in a Free Society -- 1.3. The Fiscal Crisis of the Siale -- 2. Regulation of the Private Sector -- 2.1. Up and Down with Ecology: The ""Issue-Attention Cycle"" -- 2.2. The Theory of Economic Regulation -- 2.3. The Consumer's Stake in Deregulation: The Benefit/Cost Test -- 2.4. Two Cheers for Government Regulation -- Recent Developments in Business Regulation -- 3. Fiscal and Monetary Policy

This paper investigates one of the perennial mysteries in the area of state and local finance, the provision of tax and other subsidies to business by federal, state and local governments in the face of solid evidence that such incentives do little to nothing to influence business location or job creation. The paper looks at the upsurge in such governmental aid in the last decade and considers whether this upsurge has occurred because such aid is more efficacious than it used to be or whether it has occurred for political reasons unrelated to its effectiveness.

History is institutional memory writ large. One looks at economic history to see what problems recur, what causes them to recur, what solutions have worked best in the past, and which interventions have made the problems worse. The authors argue that a moderately complex interaction between the workings of the financial sector, the way in which the political system is organized, and the administration of regulation makes perfect regulation of the financial sector extremely unlikely. Many of these problems arise as a result of conflicting incentives for those participating in and regulating the financial field. The authors find that some proposed solutions have improved matters but have costs, and that some proposed solutions have actually worsened problems in the financial sector.
Peoples and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it. —Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, 1837