This second volume of the Handbook of Public Economics is a continuation of volume one, with chapters surveying the literature on both the tax and expenditure areas of public economics.The material presents an up-to-date survey of the field of public economics by those actually doing work on the frontier of the subject, and is written in a manner that renders it useful to the public finance specialist, whilst remaining understandable for the student and non- specialist.For more information on the Handbooks of Economics series, please see our homepage on http://www.elsevier.nl/locate/hesThis outstanding work will interest not only teachers and students in the United States but economists all over the world. It is not only a massive handbook but an encyclopaedia of the current trends and information in the field. International Review of Administrative Sciences Overall, this volume undoubtedly fulfills the intentions of the editors. Any student, and many lecturers, will be glad to have such comprehensive surveys in one volume. ... for anyone interested in the directions in which current thinking in public economics may be pointing, this is an invaluable compilation. Journal of Public Policy ... on the whole the Handbook is extremely accessible: many of the chapters could be put as starred references on advanced undergraduate and graduate reading lists. The Economic Journal ... an extremely valuable and convenient series of surveys of the state of the theoretical literature on public economics in the mid-1980s. Economic Record