An 'exception culturelle’? French sensationist political economy and the shaping of public economics *

Gilbert Faccarello ()

European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 2006, vol. 13, issue 1, pages 1-38

Abstract: This paper examines some ideas developed in the field of public economics by French Sensationist political economists, from Turgot and Condorcet to the young Jean-Baptiste Say. An ideal-typical account of their position is based on the fact that issues raised by public expenditure and revenue are not dealt with independently. Instead, a strong link between the two sides of the budget is emphasized, an approach arising out of political considerations concerning human rights and equity. Following on from this they develop a theory of public expenditure based on public goods -- national and local -- and externalities, and a theory of taxation culminating in a justification of progressive taxation. The central section of the paper forms a kind of pivotal point in the analysis, showing how the above political and ethical requirements of the theory lead to the first estimation of the optimal amount of public expenditure and revenue -- involving an equilibrium at the margin.

Keywords: History of public economics; Turgot; Condorcet; Roederer; Say; public goods; externalities; equity in taxation; progressive taxation; optimal amount of public expenditure and revenue; equilibrium at the margin (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
View list of references

Downloads: (external link)
http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/link.asp?tar ... &id=J462405J85N53438 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:eujhet:v:13:y:2006:i:1:p:1-38

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/subscription.html

Access Statistics for this article

European Journal of the History of Economic Thought is edited by José Luís Cardoso Editor-Workplace-NameL Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, Portugal, Gilbert Faccarello, Heinz D. Kurz and Antoin E. Murphy

More articles in European Journal of the History of Economic Thought from Taylor and Francis Journals
Series data maintained by Christopher F. Baum ().