The public sector has grown substantially in the last fifty years‎.‎ In the euro area‎,‎ for example‎,‎ total government expenditures have been around fifty percent of GDP since the early 2000s‎,‎ resulting in a growing tax burden or high public debt or both‎.‎ At the same time‎,‎ government had intervened in all aspects of economic life‎,‎ from the provision of public goods and services to product and labor market regulation‎.‎ Research shows that the effect of government size on economic performance is positive in countries where the public sector is efficient but negative in countries where it is inefficient‎.‎ In this book‎,‎ experts from academe and central banking discuss reforms that would make the public sector more efficient and/or more equitable‎.‎ After a rich review of the public sector reform policy agenda‎,‎ with particular attention to the role of the public sector and how to improve the provision of public goods and services‎,‎ the contributors offer theoretically and empirically informed perspectives on some specific policy topics‎.‎ These include public wage and employment policy‎,‎ the role of international institutions such as the World Bank in promoting public sector reforms‎,‎ the optimal mix of tax policy‎,‎ the measurement of public sector efficiency‎,‎ and the study of fiscal sustainability‎.‎ The contributors relate these topics to such deeper issues as individual incentives as well as to policy debates over privatization‎,‎ and austerity‎.‎ ContributorsKonstantinos Angelopoulos‎,‎ Stylianos Asimakopoulos‎,‎ Danilo Ballanti‎,‎ Roberto A‎.‎ De Santis‎,‎ Roberto Dispotico‎,‎ George Economides‎,‎ Pedro Gomes‎,‎ Gabriella Legrenzi‎,‎ James Malley‎,‎ Costas Milas‎,‎ Ilaria Petrarca‎,‎ Apostolis Philippopoulos‎,‎ Francesco Porcelli‎,‎ Roberto Ricciuti‎,‎ Lodewijk Smets‎,‎ Peter Birch Sorensen‎,‎ Petros Varthalitis‎,‎ Francesco Vidoli

• Author‎:‎ Apostolis Philippopoulos
• Publisher‎:‎ MIT Press
• ISBN‎:‎ 9780262034449