Combining the insights of an economist and a political scientist, this text offers real world cases to provide students with the institutional and political dimensions of policy problems as well as easily understood principles and methods for analyzing public policies. The authors explain such basic tools as problem-identification, forecasting alternatives, cost-effectiveness analysis, and cost-benefit analysis and show how to apply these tools to specific cases. Up-to-date materials involving complex policy issues, such as education reform, cigarette smoking regulation, air pollution control, public transit capital planning, HIV/AIDS prevention strategies, and prison overcrowding are also included.