Valuing Publicly Provided Services

Decisions about expenditure on health, education and other publicly provided services require choices regarding how much of our collective income we should allocate to these services and which services should be given priority. The attempt to answer this question has stimulated many developments in economic theory and practice, from human capital theory to systems of extended national accounts. This paper is a brief survey of some of the most important ideas, with reference to their implications for Australian public policy.