Kromě toho, že Sinn upozorňuje na nutnost pochopení institucionálních detailů, na nichž teprve lze stavět rozumné hypotézy, komentuje klesající zájem o veřejné financeve Státech. Podepsal bych se pod to, že jde o jev časově a prostorově omezený a že směřuje proti výše uvedené maximě. Cituji:
In most Western countries the state absorbs more than half of the national income for its own purposes by incurring debt and by collecting taxes and fees to finance transfers and public goods. In addition, with its laws and regulations it massively intervenes in the decision-making of its citizens and businesses. Despite this, in many economics faculties there is a trend to eliminate positions in public finance, the field that examines the role of the state. The reason frequently given is that this field is already dying out in America, which is true. But I would warn against adopting American priorities just because publishing in a top American journal ranks as one of the greatest accolades for an economist.
The attitude of many American economists to public finance and economic policy was once jokingly but aptly put to me by a well-known Chicago-school economist: “Public finance teaches how a benevolent state corrects market failures. Since there’s neither market failures nor a benevolent state the discipline is superfluous.” We really do not need to adopt this stance in Europe. Of course, the state does not always have good intentions. But market failures abound, such as the financial crisis, environmental problems and many others. And of course there are failures in the implementation of government policies. For this reason, the formulation of institutional reform programmes and discretionary policy measures for overcoming market and government failures remains a task that economics should not abandon despite politicians’ apparent “immunity” to advice.