The responsibilities of the state increased hugely over the course of the 20th century and this resulted in a massive expansion in state expenditure. However, from the 1970s onwards, there was a questioning of the role of the state in a modem society. This questioning was given the name 'New Public Management' (NPM); with one of the key changes brought about by NPM was an increased emphasis on management as opposed to administration. Reforms were introduced into a number of countries (including the UK and Ireland). However, the speed and intensity of reform varied. It is argued that this is due to a number of factors and these include motive, opportunity, the political system and the culture of the country. A review of the UK showed a wide-range of reforms being introduced over a sustained period; whereas in Ireland the reforms started later and was less intense. UK Executive Agencies were researched because their work is more readily measured and these were matched with their Irish equivalents. A combination of document analysis, semi-structured interviews and two case studies were used to determine the key elements of a Performance Management System. The research shows that for the UK organisations the PMS is given visibility through published documents and is embedded into the organisations. However, in Ireland there is a gap between the rhetoric of reform and the reality. Furthermore, there is limited visibility given to performance information in the published documents and there were different views as to whether the PMS was embedded into public sector organisations; with the delivery managers suggested that they had a comprehensive PMS but the overseers/commentators disagreed with this. The evidence from the Irish case study (the Property Registration Authority (PRA) would suggest a thorough PMS but it is suggested that the PRA is an outlier.

Most of the people in Western Europe and North America live in towns. One hundred and fifty years ago only one person in five, in Britain, and one in twenty-five in the U.S.A. lived in urban settlements. The growth of the modern town dates from the Industrial Revolution and was accelerated by improvements in transportation systems, which have allowed it to extend its influence over an ever growing area. A large number of the social problems facing society today arise within the context of the urban area. High density living, traffic congestion, and noise, are all aspects of consumption externalities or social costs. Local markets in imbalance characterise a large number of urban areas. The disequilibrium of local housing markets, local labour markets, and local product markets is a common feature of a large number of modern towns and cities. Very little, however, is ever said by the economist about the imbalances in the public sector of urban areas. Individuals complain about poor housing standards, poor educational facilities, poor health and welfare services and the problems of crime in cities. The rate-payers' or local taxpayers' revolution, which is frequently reported, testifies to the importance of the local public sector. This thesis attempts to redress the imbalance. Local government expenditures (excluding debt interest) accounted for 16% of GNP in 1970. This figure compares with 3.4% in 1890 and 9.6% in 1950. As a proportion of total public expenditure local government expenditures were 24.8% of the total in 1950 and 34.7% in 1970. In 1970,10% of the working population of the U.K. were employed by local governments. Local government has been one of the fastest growing sectors of the U. K. economy in the post war period. However, it is a sector of the U.K. economy which has escaped, almost entirely, the interest of the economist, even although it is such an important allocator of the nation's resources. Gramlich (97) makes the point clearly in the context of the U.S.A.: - "The recent spate of large econometric models has probed into many previously unexplored corners of the United States' economy. But there is one sector still relatively untouched by the model builders and strangely enough, it is a sector which today is generating some of the most heated political controversy - that of state and local governments." (p 163).

La thèse reconstruit l'histoire et les fondements épistémologiques de la théorisation des dépenses publiques de Richard A. Musgrave (1910-2007), notamment dans sa Theory of Public Finance (1959) en se concentrant sur deux concepts : les biens collectifs et les biens méritoires (biens sous tutelle). Premièrement, je montre qu'il est difficile de différentier les approches théoriques de Musgrave et de Buchanan selon la distinction positif/normatif. Deuxièmement, j'explique comment Musgrave et Samuelson affinent des arguments en faveur de l'intervention publique dans le cadre de la théorie des défaillances de marché, dans un monde où l'efficacité marchande est la norme par rapport à laquelle toute déviation doit être expliquée et justifiée. La théorisation effectuée par Musgrave et ses collègues est une rationalisation dans le langage économique de préoccupations sociales et politiques quant au rôle de l'État. Troisièmement, je suggère que Musgrave inventa le concept de biens méritoires pour compléter sa théorisation des dépenses publiques parce qu'il ne voulait pas se contenter du concept étroit de bien collectif pour rendre compte de l'ensemble des services publics et parce qu'il jugeait en particulier que ces dépenses méritoires avaient leur raison d'être. Quatrièmement, je retrace l'histoire du principe de souveraineté du consommateur afin de cerner la difficulté que pose la défense des biens méritoires aux États-Unis dans les années 1950. Le corpus sur la justification des biens méritoires est structuré en fonction de son rapport à ce principe. / The theorization of public expenditures in the twentieth century is a rationalization in the language of modern economics of social and political concerns regarding the role of the state. The thesis adopts a historical and philosophical perspective on two central concepts of Richard A. Musgrave's (1910-2007) Theory of Public Finance (1959): merit goods and social goods (or collective goods). Musgrave was more successful in introducing the definition of social (collective) goods in public economics (non-excludable and non-rival) than with his concept of merit goods. Yet, I suggest that he coined the latter because he wanted to build a comprehensive normative theory of the public household that would be useful for steering the revenue-expenditure processes. The two concepts play complementary roles in his theory which is a synthesis of various European traditions in public finance. Despite the rejection of merit goods by many economists, Musgrave's view on redistribution in-kind to fight poverty was shared by many liberal economists in the postwar period. The alternative approach to public finance of Buchanan is also discussed. I show that it is complicated to oppose Musgrave's and Buchanan's approaches along the positive/normative methodological line. In contrast, the friendly discussions between Samuelson and Musgrave led to a refinement of the market failure argument for public provision of collective goods. I identify the centrality of the principle of consumer sovereignty in this paradigm and I show how the literature on the justification of merit goods can be structured with respect to this principle.