Jonathan Gruber's groundbreaking Public Finance and Public Policy was the first textbook to truly reflect the way public policy is created, implemented, and researched. Like no other text available, it integrated real-world empirical work and coverage of transfer programs and social insurance into the traditional topics of public finance. From its first edition, the book quickly became the market-leading text for Public Finance and Public Policy courses, and the margin is growing. Thoroughly updated, this timely new edition gives students the basic tools they need to understand the driving issues of public policy today, including healthcare, education, global climate change, entitlements, and more.

What should be the role of government in society? How should it design its programs? How should tax systems be designed to promote both efficiency and fairness? Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz and new co-author Jay Rosengard use their first-hand policy-advising experience to address these key issues of public-sector economics in this modern and accessible Fourth Edition.

The global financial crisis is largely behind us, but the challenges it poses to the future stability of the world’s economic system affects everyone from American families to Main Street businesses to Wall Street financial powerhouses. It has provoked controversy over the best way to reduce the risk of a repeat of what proved to be the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. To describe those challenges—and the lessons learned—the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at Brookings turned to frontline policymakers and some of their most prominent critics. Central Banking after the Great Recession contains the resulting research, leading off with a telling interview between Ben Bernanke, then in his final weeks as Federal Reserve chairman, and Liaquat Ahamed, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Lords of Finance. Insightful chapters by John Williams of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, Paul Tucker of Harvard University, and Donald Kohn of Brookings discuss unconventional monetary policy, financial regulation, the impact of the crisis on the independence of the Federal Reserve. Each chapter is followed by a lively debate.