This pathbreaking text develops a seminal theory and discipline of international public finance, for the first time advancing public economics into the international arena. Offering a new post-Cold War approach that combines support for development, the environment, and international peacekeeping, it proposes an original system of global cooperation, resource allocation, taxation, and financing, focusing on the global commons and conflicts between environmental concerns and the economic needs of developing nations.
Written to appeal to students at many levels, the book synthesizes and clarifies a wide range of theoretical, historical, and practical issues. It examines the very concept of finance and traces its development through its separation into private and public spheres. It then provides an overview of public finance theory, extending the main elements of the theory into an international context, with discussions of market failures, distributional equity, the political process, and coordination and stabilization among nations. Finally, the author shows how international public finance developed into its present patchwork of voluntary contributions and oligarchic power structures, and offers instead a comprehensive, systematic approach comprising international taxation, management of the global commons to generate revenues for international use, monetary and other measures, and international institutional reform. The book's theoretical framework puts important environmental, economic, and
political issues into a fresh perspective, while its practical recommendations cover important subjects usually neglected, including disputed commons such as Antarctica and the Southern Ocean, the deep ocean bed, the high seas, air space, the electromagnetic spectrum, the geostationary orbit, and the pollution of what is apparently our last frontier--outer space--with high-speed "space junk."
A pioneering exploration of a topic of vital and growing concern to most of the Earth's people, International Public Finance is a basic resource for a great variety of courses in development, finance, public administration, international relations, and environmental studies.
Industry Reviews
"International Public Finance is indeed a well-informed, intelligent treatment of the problems and prospects of international cooperation...an illuminating, forward-looking book. Ruben Mendez has had the imagination and foresight to hope that the future will bring increased interest in international cooperation on a wide range of issues....Ten years ago, the arguments Mendez presents might have appeared eccentric; today they seem only visionary, and
they may indeed be prophetic."--International Relations
"Presents the subject of public finance in an important context--the international context. Given the present global reality, this is an important text."--Ufot Inamete, Florida A&M University
"One of the best books I have read in public finance. I did like his comprehensive treatment of the Distributional Equity issue."--Hassan Y. Aly, Ohio State University
"An exceedingly valuable book. It is very comprehensive regarding global issues."--S.N. Leeda, Millersville University
"A great contribution in expanding the concept of public finance into the international arena."--Robert McMahon, University of South Maine
"In an increasingly interdependent world, global and systematic problems such as environment and development demand cooperative international responses. Mendez's proposals for international taxation and revenues from management of the global commons make a valuable and timely contribution to our understanding of an important subject."--Maurice F. Strong, Secretary-General, United Nations Conference on Environment and Development
"It is becoming more evident, with every year that passes, that traditional modes of financing development cooperation, and covering the costs for the cleaning up of our dangerously polluted planet, are no longer adequate. The cost of implementing 'Agenda 21,' which is to be adopted by the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), carefully detailed by the Secretariat, runs into the hundreds of billions of dollars. Where are they to
come from? Ruben Mendez's book is a pioneering effort. It is path-breaking. It opens up new ways of thinking as well as new sources of funding. Its publication could not be more timely. It is a
cornerstone of the new economic order the world needs today."--Elisabeth Mann Borgese, Club of Rome
"A scholarly and careful guide to international public finance....Provides a coherent framework for discussing some of the most important issues that face us...and which will continue to be contested by our children and our children's children....This book not only lays a deep and thoughtful base but points the way in which many of the issues can be handled."--A.D. Tillett, Executive Director, Lester Pearson Institute for International Development,
Dalhousie University
"Ruben Mendez's study issues a timely call for extending the principles and practices of Public Finance into an international setting. Reaching far beyond the customary concern with the coordination of national tax systems, it addresses issues of truly international taxation, social goods, and distribution. A path-breaking call for an international perspective on what has been a largely domestic concern."--Richard A. Musgrave, H.H. Burbank Professor of
Political Economy, Emeritus, Harvard University
"The end of the Cold War, increasing concern for the environment, the need for better disaster relief and poverty alleviation have created new problems and new opportunities. They call for new roles for a revitalized UN and other international organizations; these in turn call for new sources of finance for the international action required. So far there have been no systematic treatment and proposals for the new finance and the new action required. This is
provided by the author of this book, writing from the vantage point of his experience in the United Nations. It should be indispensable reading for students and policy-makers alike."--H.W. Singer, The
Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex
"Draws convincingly on accepted theories of public finance to outline a financial charter for a New World Order responsive both to national and global concerns."--I.G. Patel, former head of the London School of Economics and Political Science
"Both the author and myself have independently pursued the same research area during recent years--which I believe to be one of tremendous importance as economic activity continues to globalize at an accelerating pace. In my view, the Mendez book is an important contribution which extends traditional public finance to the global economy."--Bernard P. Herber, University of Arizona
"A pioneering effort in a field that is of growing importance. Benjamin Franklin's remark about the certainty of death and taxes, to which might be added books about taxes, remains true. But this book is different, not only in raising our sights to the global level, but also by showing that taxes do not always distort, and that minimal taxes are not always best. Taxes on global pollution, for example, illuminatingly advocated in this book, remove a
distortion. While private international finance has made enormous strides as a result of the revolution in communications and the proliferation of financial institutions, public finance is still stuck at the
national level. This book is therefore a refreshing and imaginative departure from the conventional wisdom of state-focused minimalism."--Paul Streeten, Oxford University
"An invaluable discussion of the new challenges in the global economic/ecology matrix."--Mostafa K. Tolba, Executive Director, United Nations Environment Programme
"A text with unusual potential, particularly valuable for its integration of institutional knowledge with analytical frameworks. It is sensibly organized, clearly presented, and easily accessible to students who have had introductory economics."--Jere R. Behrman, University of Pennsylvania
"His book shows convincingly that the principles of public finance as traditionally applied at the national level can be extended to the international level ... may his contribution put the subject back onto the intergovernmental agenda."--John Burley, UNCTAD, Geneva
"A well-informed, intelligent treatment of the problems and prospects of international cooperation, especially the financing of multilateral organizations...an illuminating, forward-looking book. [Mendez] has had the imagination and foresight to hope that the future will bring increased interest in international cooperation on a wide range of issues."--nternational Relations
"Presents a positive economic analysis of the political process."--Journal of Economic Literature
"His book shows convincingly that the principles of public finance as traditionally applied at the national level can be extended to the international level...his contribution put the subject back onto the intergovernmental agenda."--John Burley, UNCTAD Geneva
