PERSPECTIVES ON THE LAST QUARTER CENTURY OF RESEARCH IN PUBLIC ECONOMICS

The field of public economics has witnessed major developments during the last quarter century. The main drivers of change have been new policy challenges such as increasing income inequality, footloose international capital and globalization, population ageing, global warming, and the response to the Great Recession. The increased focus on empirical testing has been fueled by the availability of better micro administrative datasets, better identification through more credible econometric techniques, as well as new research methodologies, including lab experiments and randomized field controlled trials. This paper provides overviews of general trends of research in public economics from three different important and respected sources and then singles out and highlights several new developments on a short list of research topics.