Open AccessForty Years of Public Economics: A Personal Perspective
Author(s) -
Jacques Drez̀e
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
the journal of economic perspectives/the journal of economic perspectives
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 9.614
H-Index - 196
eISSN - 1944-7965
pISSN - 0895-3309
DOI - 10.1257/jep.9.2.111
Subject(s) - perspective (graphical) , field (mathematics) , relation (database) , positive economics , economics , work (physics) , neoclassical economics , computer science , engineering , mechanical engineering , mathematics , database , artificial intelligence , pure mathematics
This paper presents a personal perspective on the field of public economics with emphasis on the interplay of theory and applications. In the early 1950s, theoretical developments grew out of practical applications. Yet, few economists succeed in creatively linking theory to real problems and our professional organization fails to promote adequately such contributions. The author also discusses briefly the success of public economics, its fragmentation into subfields, and its relation to macroeconomics. The writing of this paper was prompted by the author's participation in editing a volume of selected papers by William Vickrey, whose work is exemplary of the perspective presented here.