It has been common practice in economic models to portray the politician as a mechanistic individual who behaves to maximize a prespecified conception of social welfare. The self interest and discretion that is attributed to firms and consumers as optimizing agents is absent from the motives of such a politician. This assumes that economic policy choice is depoliticized. This book recognizes that politicians do not behave mechanistically. Politicians are viewed as self interest-optimizing agents and, thus, the choice of economic policies is politicized. The book provides a broad spectrum of...