Abstract
The paper examines the scientific work of Alberto Alesina as leader of a new school of macroeconomic political economy which has renovated and broadened the content of this branch of the economic science. His political economy is not dominated by the axiomatic normative economics, where benevolent planners maximize the aggregate welfare dressed in simplistic neo-Keynesian clothing. After an examination of its roots in the Italian tradition of political economy and public finance the paper makes a comparison with the public choice approach, with decision-making by the electors and politicians is done. However, Alesina new macro-economic perspective incorporates the hypothesis of rational agents while the public choice approach is inherently micro economic and is generally based on limited rationally.
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Forte, F. The New Macro Political Economy of Alberto Alesina. Atl Econ J 40, 417–428 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11293-012-9339-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11293-012-9339-x