Readings in Public Choice and Constitutional Political Economy
Public choice is the study of behavior at the intersection of economics and political science. Since the pioneering work of Duncan Black in the 1940s, public choice has developed a rich literature, drawing from such related perspectives as history, philos
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Charles K. Rowley
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Friedrich Schneider
Readings in Public Choice and Constitutional Political Economy
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Friedrich G. Schneider Universita¨t Linz Inst. Volkswirtschaftslehre Abt. Volkswirtschaftspolitik Altenbergerstr. 69 4040 Linz Austria [email protected]
Charles K. Rowley Locke Institute Fairfax, VA 22030 USA and Department of Economics George Mason University Fairfax, Virginia 22030 USA [email protected]
ISBN 978-0-387-74574-9
e-ISBN 978-0-387-75870-1
Library of Congress Control Number: 2008930757 # 2008 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. Printed on acid-free paper. 987654321 springer.com
We dedicate Readings in Public Choice and Constitutional Political Economy to the memory of Duncan Black 23 May 1908 to 14 January 1991 The Founding Father of Public Choice
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Preface
Readings in Public Choice and Constitutional Political Economy provides a detailed and comprehensive account of the subject known as public choice. However, the title would not convey sufficiently the breadth of the contents, which can be summarized better as the fruitful interchange of economics, political science and moral philosophy on the basis of an image of man as a purposive and responsible actor who pursues his own objectives as efficiently as possible. This fruitful interchange between the fields mentioned above existed in the late eighteenth century, during the brief period of the Scottish Enlightenment when such great scholars as David Hume, Adam Ferguson and Adam Smith contributed to all these fields, and more. However, as intellectual specialization gradually replaced broad-based scholarship from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, it became increasingly rare to find a scholar making major contributions to more than one field. Once Alfred Marshall defined economics in neoclassical terms, as a narrow positive discipline, the link between economics, political science and moral philosophy was all but severed and economists redefined their role as that of ‘the humble dentist’ providing technical economic information as inputs to improve the performance of impartial, benevolent and omniscient governments in their attempts to promote the public interest. This indeed was the dominant view within an economics profession that had become dominated by the economics of John Maynard Keynes and Paul Samuelson, immedi
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