Coercion and social welfare in public finance : economic and political perspectives / edited by Jorge Martinez-Vazquez, Georgia State University, Stanley L. Winer, Carleton University.

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Coercion, welfare, and the study of public finance / Jorge Martinez-Vazquez and Stanley L. Winer -- The constitution of coercion : Wicksell, violence, and the ordering of society / John Joseph Wallis -- Proprietary public finance : on its emergence and evolution out of anarchy / Stergios Skaperdas -- Discussion : a spatial model of state coercion / Léonard Dudley -- Coercion, taxation, and voluntary association / Roger D. Congleton -- Kaldor-Hicks-Scitovsky coercion, Coasian bargaining, and the state / Michael C. Munger -- Discussion : a sociological perspective on coercion and social welfare / Edgar Kiser -- Non-coercion, efficiency and incentive compatibility in public goods / John O. Ledyard -- Social welfare and coercion in public finance / Stanley L. Winer, George Tridimas and Walter Hettich -- Discussion : the role of coercion in public economic theory / Robin Boadway -- Lindahl fiscal incidence and the measurement of coercion / Saloua Sehili and Jorge Martinez-Vazquez -- Discussion : state-local incidence and the Tiebout model / George R. Zodrow -- Fiscal coercion in federal systems, with special attention to highly divided societies / Giorgio Brosio -- Discussion : on coercion in divided societies / Bernard Grofman -- Cooperating to resist coercion : an experimental study / Lucy F. Ackert, Ann B. Gillette and Mark Rider -- Partial coercion, conditional cooperation, and self-commitment in voluntary contributions to public goods / Elena Cettolin and Arno Riedl -- Discussion : coercion in the lab! / Michael McKee.

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 contributors to the volume recognize this tradition, but add to it by using contemporary frameworks to study a set of related issues concerning fiscal coercion and economic welfare. These issues range from the compatibility of an open access society with the original Wicksellian vision to the productivity of coercion in experimental games.