Productive specialization,peaceful cooperation and the problem of the predatory state: lessons from comparative historical political economy

Public Choice - This paper reconceptualizes and unbundles the relationship between public predation, state capacity and economic development. By reframing our understanding of state capacity theory...     

Robert Tollison and operationalizing public choice

In this tribute to Robert Tollison, I will outline his contributions to the development of public choice. I focus on Tollison’s work on rent-seeking, the political economy of reform, and the rules level of analysis in sports economics. Throughout his career, Tollison brilliantly figured out ways to take insights from price theory and public choice theory and operationalize them using multiple methods of empirical analysis, including historical interpretation and statistical testing.     

Where Chicago meets London: James M. Buchanan,Virginia Political Economy,and cost theory

Public Choice - The state must expend resources to credibly threaten the use of force, and the actual use of force is more costly than just exercising the threat. A population that views itself as...     

Peter Berger and the Comedic Drama of Political,Economic and Social Life

Peter L. Berger’s work offers his readers a window into the human drama in all its dimension: political, economic and social. He invites his readers to think intensely, endlessly, and shamelessly about the doings of man. Through a comparative analysis of Invitation to Sociology this paper discusses Berger’s contributions to the sciences of man in terms of methodological individualism, the theory of unintended consequences, spontaneous sociability, institutional analysis, and freedom. In so doing, I hope to show that Berger’s work demonstrates the intellectual power of spontaneous order analysis and the link between the humanistic project in sociology and our understanding of the human condition in general and the freedom of the individual in society in particular.     

Perestroika and public choice: The economics of autocratic succession in a rent-seeking society

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Public Choice Society Meetings, Tucson, AZ, March 1990, and at the Austrian Economics Colloquium at New York University, September 1990. We would like to thank the participants at our session, and those at the Colloquium, for their comments and criticisms. In addition, Hal Hochman, Israel Kirzner, Mario Rizzo, Charles Rowley, Robert Tollison, Gordon Tullock, and an anonymous referee provided useful comments and criticisms. The usual caveat applies.     

Two-tiered entrepreneurship and economic development

This paper argues that there are two tiers of entrepreneurship important for economic development. One is concerned with investments in productive technologies that improve productivity and better service consumer needs. The other is concerned with the creation of protective technologies that secure citizens’ private property rights vis-à-vis one another. In the developing world where governments cannot or do not protect citizens against predation, “institutional entrepreneurs” devise private mechanisms of property protection, providing the security required for productive entrepreneurship to grow. However, private protection technologies can be a double-edged sword. While private protection technologies enable some investment and exchange by securing citizens’ property where government does not, potential constraints on these technologies’ effectiveness may simultaneously limit their ability to expand investment and exchange beyond modest levels.     

János Kornai,the Austrians,and the political and economic analysis of socialism

Public Choice - What is the relationship between central planning, pervasive shortages, and soft budget constraints under socialism? In this paper, we address this question by exploring the...