Book excerpt: Presenting emphases on and approaches to issues such as government spending, reporting, pricing and fiscal federalism, the Handbook of Public Finance demonstrates the utility of integrating public finance theory with actual public policy practices. It discusses applications in major subfields of public finance, including public education, environmental regulation, energy policy, social welfare programs, and local and state politics. Other topics of discussion include the theory and practice of tax incidence analysis; the marginal costs of taxation and regulation, the economics of expenditure incidence, discounting and the social discount rate; passive use benefits, and public sector pricing.