Public Choice Essays in Honor of a Maverick Scholar: Gordon Tullock


Book Description

In May 1999, over 50 distinguished scholars from all over the world gathered to honor Gordon Tullock, one of the most prolific, original, and versatile scholars of his generation. Tullock is best known for his pioneering work in Public Choice, the study of how self-interested individuals interact with governments. Tullock's research in public choice has contributed to the understanding of the decisions made by elected officials and bureaucrats, as well as knowledge and how individuals and pressure groups both inside and outside the government seek to shape it. Public Choice Essays in Honor of a Maverick Scholar: Gordon Tullock includes contributions that were strongly influenced by Tullock's work. His influence on studies of governance is well illustrated by the nine papers in this volume. These papers and the discussion touch upon a broad array of aspects of public choice and of Tullock's research.




American Conservatism


Book Description

“A must-own title.” —National Review Online American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia is the first comprehensive reference volume to cover what is surely the most influential political and intellectual movement of the past half century. More than fifteen years in the making—and more than half a million words in length—this informative and entertaining encyclopedia contains substantive entries on those persons, events, organizations, and concepts of major importance to postwar American conservatism. Its contributors include iconic patriarchs of the conservative and libertarian movements, celebrated scholars, well-known authors, and influential movement activists and leaders. Ranging from “abortion” to “Zoll, Donald Atwell,” and written from viewpoints as various as those which have informed the postwar conservative movement itself, the encyclopedia’s more than 600 entries will orient readers of all kinds to the people and ideas that have given shape to contemporary American conservatism. This long-awaited volume is not to be missed.




Readings in Applied Microeconomics


Book Description

This reader encourages students to appreciate the power of the market, including specific examples and addressing questions on whether markets actually work well and offering evidence that market failures are not as serious or as common as claimed.




Individualism and Political Disorder


Book Description

Inspired by F.A. Hayek’s Individualism and Economic Order, this book also stands in contrast to the themes of that work, by emphasizing that collective action works differently from the way the market works. The chapters comprise papers written by James M.Buchanan, both with and without Yoon’s co-authorship, after the publication of his Collected Work volumes. These chapters reflect the authors' thoughts on politics, seen through the lens of fiscal policy and the tragedies of the commons and anti-commons in collective action. The pathologies of democratic politics rigorously analyzed in the book prove the relevance of Buchanan's constitutionalism




Rationalizing Capitalist Democracy


Book Description

Offering a fascinating biography of a foundational theory, Amadae reveals not only how the ideological battles of the Cold War shaped ideas but also how those ideas may today be undermining the very notion of individual liberty they were created to defend.




International Bibliography of Economics


Book Description

IBSS is the essential tool for librarians, university departments, research institutions and any public or private institution whose work requires access to up-to-date and comprehensive knowledge of the social sciences.




The Power of Supply and Demand


Book Description

In contrast to many economics texts, which are often abstract and mathematical, this book uses simple language and graphs to demonstrate the general applicability of basic economic concepts, informed by ideas of the transaction cost paradigm, to a wide range of social, physical and legal phenomena. The case studies and applications collected here should enable students and practitioners, especially those in the management of the built and natural environment, to appreciate the power of economic theory in expressing, interpreting, and reviewing policies and practices.




Contextual Development Economics


Book Description

Poverty still persists in today’s low-income countries despite decades of international aid, and extensive research on the determinants of growth and development. The book argues that meeting this challenge requires a holistic understanding of the context-specific factors that influence economic behavior and structures in poor countries. Contextual Development Economics approaches this task by offering a methodology that allows analysing the dynamic interrelations between economic, cultural and historical determinants of economic life in low-income countries. The book starts with an empirical inquiry into the economic characteristics of low-income countries that create the context by which the specific forms of organising economic activity in these countries are determined. It then looks at how different generations of development economists sought to explain economic realities in low-income countries from the 1940s through today. The book finally synthesises the results from this empirical and methodological analysis with insights from an inquiry into contributions of the German Historical School, from which it borrows the concept of the economic style as a methodological alternative to the universal and hence often irrelevant models of mainstream development economics. This book offers a promising perspective for the future of development economics that will be of interest to researchers and development practitioners alike. It will also be relevant for academics and students with an interest in applications of the method and concepts of the Historical School to contemporary problems.




Green Taxation in Question


Book Description

Environmental economists have in general paid little or no attention to the political context within which green taxation would be introduced. In order to understand the real-life politics of green taxation, it is necessary to establish which political constraints determine the actual design of green taxes. Daugbjerg and Svendsen identify rent-seeking, party politics, and policy networks as the three main constraints in environmental regulation. This analysis forms the basis of policy recommendations on the future design of green taxation and international permit trading. Even though these policy recommendations are second best in strict economic terms, they are the best economic designs given that they must be politically feasible.




In Defense of Monopoly


Book Description

In Defense of Monopoly offers an unconventional but empirically grounded argument in favor of market monopolies. Authors McKenzie and Lee claim that conventional, static models exaggerate the harm done by real-world monopolies, and they show why some degree of monopoly presence is necessary to maximize the improvement of human welfare over time. Inspired by Joseph Schumpeter's suggestion that market imperfections can drive an economy's long-term progress, In Defense of Monopoly defies conventional assumptions to show readers why an economic system's failure to efficiently allocate its resources is actually a necessary precondition for maximizing the system's long-term performance: the perfectly fluid, competitive economy idealized by most economists is decidedly inferior to one characterized by market entry and exit restrictions or costs. An economy is not a board game in which players compete for a limited number of properties, nor is it much like the kind of blackboard games that economists use to develop their monopoly models. As McKenzie and Lee demonstrate, the creation of goods and services in the real world requires not only competition but the prospect of gains beyond a normal competitive rate of return.




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