Strategic Public Finance takes a multidisciplinary approach to public finance. It considers the nature of public finance and its symbiotic relationship with economy and society. It considers its philosophical underpinnings, the nature of the services it finances, its relative scale, how it is raised and spent, its possible beneficial and adverse effects, its sustainability, the appropriate governmental level of decision making, the means by which it can be disbursed, and an optimal strategy for public finance.

Assesses the arguments about the poll tax. It places the specific proposals within the framework of the national and international context of local government finance and attempts to determine what the parameters are to reform.

This book explores new forms of private, mutual municipal, public-private and 'reverse' state funding of public investments, co-payments and shared contributions, vouchers, and pooled public risk-financing. It includes case studies taken from the Nordic countries, UK, Spain, Slovenia, Slovakia, Turkey and South Korea.