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Among other topics the book covers the following topics:

• The role of property rights in economics
• Deadweight loss and optimal taxation
• Elementary game theory focusing on the prisoner’s dilemma and the evolution of social cooperation
• Public Finance
• Public Choice

In clear intuitive terms the book explains why Pareto-efficiency is at the basis of private market equilibrium. The book then goes on to explain what Samuelson’s rule for the optimal provision of a public good is, and how the Hicks-Kaldor criterion can make a bridge between Samuelson’s utilitarian procedure for devising his rule and Pareto-efficiency. The book clearly explains the problems inherent in applying Samuelson’s rule and the conditions under which Black’s median voter theorem can help to palliate these informational problems. Then, applying Public Choice analysis the book explains the problems inherent in putting the modern theory of optimal government intervention into action when those in government have selfish reasons for deviating from this theory. All of this in a style accessible to readers without any previous economic background.

More generally the book explains that institutions such as regulation, taxes, property rights, and government spending are merely tools, each with different costs and benefits. The book attempts to show readers how to evaluate the merit of these different tools without entering into ideological debates.