Richard Tresch earned a bachelor's degree in 1965 from Williams College and a doctorate in
economics in 1973 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was a teaching assistant
prior to joining Boston College. He joined the Boston College faculty in 1969, and during his
49-year-long career in the college, Dr. Tresch has served as the Chairman of the Department of
Economics, Director of Graduate Studies, and Director of Undergraduate Studies. Currently, he is
Professor Emeritus of Economics at Boston College. In 1996, he was chosen as the Massachusetts
Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. He was one
of 585 national entrants in the foundation's U.S. Professors of the Year Program, which salutes
outstanding undergraduate instructors, with the award recognized as one of the most prestigious
honors to be bestowed on professors. Dr. Tresch, a member of the American Economic Association,
has served on the board of editors of the American Economic Review and contributed to the New
England Journal of Business and Economics and Public Finance. Moreover, he is the editor of a fourvolume
major reference work on public sector economics.

Part I: Introduction: The Content and Methodology of Public Sector Theory1. Introduction to Normative Public Sector Theory
2. A General Equilibrium Model for Public Sector Analysis
3. First-Best and Second-Best Analysis and the Political Economy of Public Sector Economics Part II: The Theory of Public Expenditures and Taxation-First-Best Analysis4. The Social Welfare Function in Policy Analysis
5. The Problem of Externalities--An Overview
6. Consumption Externalities
7. Production Externalities
8. Global Warming: An Application of Externality Theory
9. The Theory of Decreasing Cost Production
10. The First-Best Theory of Taxation
11. Applying First-Best Principles of Taxation-What to Tax and How Part III: The Theory of Public Expenditures and Taxation: Second-Best Analysis12. Introduction to Second-Best Analysis
13. The Second-Best Theory of Taxation in One-Consumer Economies with Linear Production Technology
14. The Second-Best Theory of Taxation with General Production Technologies and Many Consumers
15. Taxation Under Asymmetric Information
16. The Theory and Measurement of Tax Incidence
17. Expenditure Incidence and Economy-Wide Incidence Studies
18. The Second-Best Theory of Public Expenditures: Overview
19. Transfer Payments and Private Information
20. Social Insurance: Medical Care
21. Social Insurance: Social Security
22. Externalities in a Second-Best Environment
23. Decreasing Costs and the Theory of the Second-Best-The Boiteux Problem
24. General Production Rules in a Second-Best Environment
25. Behavioral Public Sector Economics Part IV: Fiscal Federalism and International Public Finance26. Optimal Federalism: Sorting the Functions of Government Within the Fiscal Hierarchy
27. Optimal Federalism: The Sorting of People within the Fiscal Hierarchy
28. The Role of Grants-in-Aid in a Federalist System of Governments
29. International Public Finance