Public finance
Public finance studies how governments raise revenue, spend funds, and borrow, and how these choices affect economies and society.
Government budget: A plan of expected public revenue and spending over a defined period. It is the central accounting framework for comparing government income with outlays.
Budget deficit: A period in which government outlays exceed its revenues. A deficit is the annual financing gap that borrowing or other measures must cover.
Public investment: Government spending that creates or improves assets expected to provide future public benefits. It links budget choices to infrastructure, productivity, and long-term capacity.
Austerity: Policies that reduce public deficits through spending cuts, tax increases, or both. It represents a consolidation strategy whose timing and effects remain contested.
Taxation: The compulsory levying of payments by public authorities to fund government and pursue public purposes. Taxes are a principal source of government revenue and shape incentives.
Fiscal multiplier: The change in economic output associated with a change in government spending or taxation. It describes how a budget decision can produce effects beyond its initial size.
Social insurance: Public programs that pool risks such as unemployment, illness, disability, and old age. Its contributions and benefits are major, often legally committed, budget flows.
Modern monetary theory: A macroeconomic framework emphasizing the monetary sovereignty of governments that issue their own currency. It challenges conventional limits placed on currency-issuing governments' fiscal capacity.
Public expenditure: Government spending on goods, services, transfers, and other obligations. Its composition determines which public services and transfers budgets provide.
Tax incidence: The distribution of a tax’s economic burden among buyers, sellers, workers, and owners. Statutory liability does not determine who ultimately bears a tax's cost.