Public Finance as the study of income Essay

Public FinanceIntroductionAccording to Hyman, 2010, the term public finance is defined as the study of how the government through rationing the use of government goods and services and funding their resource costs affects price incentives, production possibilities, and resource utilization. In the case, the author implies that the public finance sector is wholly identified as government related, and the private sector has very little influence on its activities. Chand, 2008, defines public finance as the study of income, debt, and expenditure of the government. He then goes ahead and gives the main difference with the term private investment; that unlike focusing on the government, private funding is for an individual or institution. The study of public finance also incorporates the analysis of the various fiscal and economic policies that the government comes up with to deal with the debts taken. Therefore, the definitions by Hyman, 2010, and Chand, 2008, are in harmony with each other. In Bhatia, 2009, Public Finance is defined as the subject that discusses financial operations of the government treasury. Bhatia, 2009, offers a comprehensive definition of the term public finance by first explaining the concept of public and private goods. In this angle, he is, therefore, able to formulate a definition that allows the reader to see the rationale of public sector economics. The role of the government in the public finance sector is also said to be regulatory; being termed as the invisible hand of market forces. The author, therefore, builds up the decision logically and therefore easily comprehendible. Kennedy, 2012, offers a different approach towards the definition of public finance. Instead of coming up with her definition of the subject, she quotes existing definitions that accurately meet the demands of the reader. The most comprehensive is that of Dalton, that states that public finance is concerned with the expenditure and income processes of public authorities and the adjustment of one to the other. In total, the author summarizes the definitions and terms public finance as the activity concerned with the explanation of how governments collect revenue, incur expenditure and the administration of the tax expenditure process CITATION MMa12 l 1033 (Kennedy, 2012). References BIBLIOGRAPHY Bhatia, H. L. (2009). Public Finance. New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House Pvt . Chand, S. (2008). Public Finance, Volume 1. Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Dist. Hyman, D. (2010). Public Finance. Boston, Massachussets: Cengage Learning. Kennedy, M. M. (2012). Public Finance. New Delhi: PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd. Source document