ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The book tries to draw conclusions both for the substantive issue of the design of fiscal policy in an age of austerity and for the future development of public economics. It argues that distributional issues at a point in time are central to public economics: most of the problems of public finance would disappear if the world were populated by identical representative agents. There are choices to be made regarding the balance between spending cuts and tax increases. The case for integrating social security contributions with the personal income tax is far from overwhelming. The burden of the national debt has to be considered in conjunction with the capital infrastructure passed on to future generations and the state of the environment that they will inherit. Finally, reflecting more generally on the failures of economics following the 2008 financial crisis is discussed.
