Economic Inquiry and Its Logic

by Buchanan, James M.

• ISBN13: 9780865972360
• ISBN10: 0865972362
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-10-01
• Publisher: Liberty Fund

Summary

This volume presents a collection of Buchanan's most representative works in economic method and analysis. As Robert D Tollison points out in his foreword, "(Included) in this volume are some of (Buchanan's) most often cited works on methodology, including papers reflecting his emphasis on the subjective nature of opportunity costs and the implications of this subjectivity for economic analysis." The works collected in this volume also demonstrate Buchanan's interest throughout his career in the ideas and issues posed by economic theory. Buchanan shows throughout this volume that he believes economic theory can help explain the world around us. Spanning nearly his entire fifty-year career, Buchanan's writings in this volume exhibit a consistency of thought and belief as ideas recur from paper to paper, ever richer and more resonant. The thirty-six works represented here are grouped into the major categories: the practice and method of economic theory; competition and entrepreneurship; the theory of monopoly; input prices; opportunity cost and efficient prices; increasing returns and the work ethic; economic theory in a post-Socialist world. Clearly, these papers as a whole reflect a broad range of issues and provide us with countless insights. More than this, they give us a picture of the theorist in his workshop. They acquaint us with what interests him and how he deals with important issues. In his conclusion to the opening essay, 'Is Economics the Science of Choice?' Buchanan typifies the richness of thought available throughout this volume: "Modern economics, as practiced by professional scholars, embodies confusions that are fundamentally methodological. For myself, I advance no claim that my own thinking has yet fully rid itself of the paradigms of neoclassical orthodoxy."

Table of Contents

Foreword	xi
The Practice and Method of Economic Theory
Is Economics the Science of Choice?	3	(19)
General Implications of Subjectivism in Economics	22	(8)
There Is a Science of Economics	30	(14)
Economics as a Public Science	44	(8)
Ceteris Paribus: Some Notes on Methodology	52	(15)
Marshall's Mathematical Note XIX	67	(3)
James M. Buchanan
Charles Plott
The Normative Purpose of Economic ``Science'': Rediscovery of an Eighteenth Century Method	70	(17)
Geoffrey Brennan
James Buchanan
Predictive Power and the Choice among Regimes	87	(23)
Geoffrey Brennan
James Buchanan
The Economizing Element in Knight's Ethical Critique of Capitalist Order	110	(18)
Professor Alchian on Economic Method	128	(13)
Competition and Entrepreneurship
Cognition, Choice, and Entrepreneurship	141	(13)
James M. Buchanan
Alberto di Pierro
Resource Allocation and Entrepreneurship	154	(15)
Entrepreneurship and the Internalization of Externalities	169	(22)
James M. Buchanan
Roger L. Faith
The Theory of Monopoly
The Theory of Monopolistic Quantity Discounts	191	(15)
The ``Dead Hand'' of Monopoly	206	(13)
James M. Buchanan
Gordon Tullock
On Monopoly Price	219	(17)
Geoffrey Brennan
James Buchanan
Dwight Lee
A Regional Countermeasure to National Wage Standardization	236	(9)
James M. Buchanan
John E. Moes
Input Prices
Saving and the Rate of Interest: A Comment	245	(8)
The Backbending Supply Curve of Labor: An Example of Doctrinal Retrogression?	253	(7)
The Homogenization of Heterogeneous Inputs	260	(18)
James M. Buchanan
Robert D. Tollison
Trying Again to Value a Life	278	(7)
James M. Buchanan
Roger L. Faith
Opportunity Cost and Efficient Prices
Opportunity Costs and Legal Institutions	285	(13)
Peak Loads and Efficient Pricing: Comment	298	(10)
The Optimality of Pure Competition in the Capacity Problem: Comment	308	(3)
Private Ownership and Common Usage: The Road Case Re-examined	311	(16)
Introduction: L. S. E. Cost Theory in Retrospect	327	(16)
Increasing Returns and the Work Ethic
Economic Interdependence and the Work Ethic	343	(23)
The Economics and the Ethics of Idleness	366	(11)
The Simple Economics of the Menial Servant	377	(11)
Constitutional Implications of Alternative Models of Increasing Returns	388	(9)
James M. Buchanan
Yong J. Yoon
Who Cares Whether the Commons Are Privatized?	397	(12)
Economic Theory in a Postsocialist World
Asymmetrical Reciprocity in Market Exchange: Implications for Economies in Transition	409	(17)
Economic Science and Cultural Diversity	426	(9)
Structure-Induced Behaviour in Markets and in Politics	435	(18)
We Should Save More in Our Own Economic Interest	453	(17)
Economic Theory in the Postrevolutionary Moment of the 1990s	470	(17)
Name Index	487	(4)
Subject Index	491