No comments about Developing Country Debt and the World Economy (National Bureau of Economic Research Project Report).

No comments about Financing Energy Efficiency: Lessons from Brazil, China, India, and Beyond.

No comments about Public Sector Financial Management.

1 comments about When Government Fails: The Orange County Bankruptcy.

1. Although informative, the author needs almost 400 pages to say what could have easily been said in well under 100.

1 comments about Regulating Infrastructure: Monopoly, Contracts, and Discretion.

1. This book combines case-studies, historical overviews, and analysis of past and present infrastructure regulation. From the standpoint of someone who has worked in this industry for about a year, I found this to be an informative, well-written overview with an especially detailed elaboration of the development of regulations and governmental regulatory agencies from the end of the nineteenth century to middle of the twentieth. The author strives to present a balanced picture of the pros and cons of regulation, but it is fairly clear that he is prima facie against the idea of government regulation (he ends his book though with an admission that there is still much to learn about the application of regulatory schemes). There is much in this book to admire (I especially liked the discussions on unbundling, capture, and the influence of varying conceptions of private property) and very little to be dissatisfied with (I would have been more happy to see some of the historical narrative abridged and replaced with a more in-depth case-study examination of the correlation between deregulation and efficiency).

No comments about Intergovernmental Fiscal Transfers: Principles and Practice (Public Sector Governance and Accountability).

No comments about Understanding the Economic and Financial Impacts of Natural Disasters (Disaster Risk Management Series).

No comments about The Impact of Community Law on Tax Treaties - Issues and Solutions (EUCOTAX SERIES ON EUROPEAN TAXATION Volume 4) (Eucotax Series on European Taxation, 4).

1 comments about Fiscal Health for Local Governments.

1. I require this book for students enrolled in a graduate seminar in public finance. Important, strategic policy decisions increasingly hinge upon the financial condition of government, which includes many resource acquisition and fiscal environment issues matters. In 1992, in response to a thoughtful monograph written by Robert Berne (Wagner School at N.Y.U.), the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (G.A.S.B.) began considering the need to include fiscal information in financial reports. The result is new standards for preparing government accounting reports that took effect after June 2005 for governments preparing comprehensive annual financial reports (CAFRs). Standard 44 on economic condition reporting expands the requirements for the statistical section of governments' CAFRs, to include economic trend data. The new focus on economic condition extends the analysis of governments' financial positions into areas traditionally ignored by accountants, but leaves unaddressed many fiscal considerations (such as the sensitivity of revenue sources to economic change) raised by Berne and others. Honadle, Costa and Cigler's book will enable government managers and policy makers to bridge successfully the gap between the required components of the financial statement and its accounting perspective and the more comprehensive information requirements of achieving governmental fiscal health. The book also provides a wealth of information that will help government managers tackle meaningfully the "Managers Letter" section of the financial statements (required under GASB 34), which is intended to translate the financials for multiple stakeholders.
   
   Josie LaPlante

No comments about Essentials of United States Taxation.