The authors examine how tax policies and tax systems arise out of democratic choices. The emphasis on voting behavior sets their work apart from other research on public finance. They find that democratic institutions yield tax systems that follow predictable patterns. The analysis is applied to the United States in a general equilibrium model. Theory is also linked to fact through statistical research on national and state governments in the U.S. and Canada. In addition, the authors discuss how to evaluate the efficiency of taxation in a framework that includes voting choices and review the...

This work examines tax policies and tax systems as they arise from democratic choices, set against the background of a market economy. The authors argue that democratic institutions yield complex tax systems with features that follow a varied but predictable pattern. In developing their analysis, the authors use formal modelling of voting behaviour, emphasizing recent advances in the theory of probabilistic voting.

Although coercion is a fundamental and unavoidable part of our social lives, economists have not offered an integrated analysis of its role in the public economy. The essays in this book focus on coercion arising from the operation of the fiscal system, a major part of the public sector. Collective choices on fiscal matters emerge from and have all the essential characteristics of social interaction, including the necessity to force unwanted actions on some citizens. This was recognized in an older tradition in public finance which can still serve as a starting point for modern work. The...