Download or read book Growing Public: Volume 1, The Story written by Peter H. Lindert and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2004-01-12 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Growing Public examines the question of whether social policies that redistribute income impose constraints on economic growth. Taxes and transfers have been debated for centuries, but only now can we get a clear view of the whole evolution of social spending. Lindert argues that, contrary to the intuition of many economists and the ideology of many politicians, social spending has contributed to, rather than inhibited, economic growth.