The Economics of Politics

by Tullock, Gordon

• ISBN13: 9780865975347
• ISBN10: 0865975345
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-02-01
• Publisher: INGRAM

Summary

This is the fourth volume in Liberty Fund's "The Selected Works of Gordon Tullock". This volume includes some of Gordon Tullock's most noteworthy contributions to the theory and application of public choice, which is a relatively new science that links economics and political action. This volume combines the best parts of two of his books, Private Wants: Public Means and On Voting, as well as his famous monograph The Vote Motive. The common thread is the importance of the bond between Homo politicus and Homo economicus: they are the same species, each driven largely by self-interest in vigorous pursuit of such personal objectives as wealth, power, prestige, and income security within the confines of society. "The Economics of Politics" covers such diverse public choice topics as: the nature and origins of public choice, the power of using economic analysis to understand and predict the behaviour of politically influenced markets, and an evaluation of voting rules and political institutions. Equally confident in both the normative and the positive branches of the discipline, and well-versed in the wide variety of institutions and practices of democracy throughout history, Tullock takes the reader on a journey that goes well beyond the conventional horizon of public choice.

Table of Contents

Introduction, by Charles K. Rowley	ix
1. THE NATURE OF PUBLIC CHOICE
An Economic Analysis of Political Choice	3	(8)
Origins of Public Choice	11	(21)
People Are People: The Elements of Public Choice	32	(17)
2. WHAT SHOULD GOVERNMENT DO?
Mosquito Abatement	49	(19)
Property, Contract, and the State	68	(18)
Bargaining	86	(11)
Externalities and All That	97	(17)
The Costs of Government	114	(23)
Remedies	137	(19)
The Social Costs of Reducing Social Cost	156	(11)
3. THE VOTE MOTIVE: AN ESSAY IN THE ECONOMICS OF POLITICS	167	(58)
4. RATIONAL IGNORANCE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS
Political Ignorance	225	(16)
The Politics of Persuasion	241	(18)
The Economics of Lying	259	(11)
Some Further Thoughts on Voting	270	(5)
5. VOTING PARADOXES
A Measure of the Importance of Cyclical Majorities
Colin D. Campbell and Gordon Tullock	275	(5)
The Paradox of Voting-A Possible Method of Calculation	280	(3)
Computer Simulation of a Small Voting System
Gordon Tullock and Colin D. Campbell	283	(10)
The Paradox of Not Voting for Oneself	293	(2)
Avoiding the Voter's Paradox Democratically: Comment	295	(2)
An Approach to Empirical Measures of Voting Paradoxes
John L. Dobra and Gordon Tullock	297	(4)
6. THE MEDIAN VOTER THEOREM Duncan Black: The Founding Father, 23 May 1908-14 January 1991	301	(18)
Hotelling and Downs in Two Dimensions	305	(14)
7. VOTE TRADING AND LOGROLLING AS MECHANISMS OF POLITICAL EXCHANGE
A Simple Algebraic Logrolling Model	319	(12)
More Complicated Log-rolling	331	(15)
Efficiency in Log-rolling	346	(15)
8. MORE ON DEMAND REVEALING
Some Limitations of Demand-Revealing Processes: Comment
T. Nicolaus Tideman and Gordon Tullock	361	(5)
Coalitions under Demand Revealing
T. Nicolaus Tideman and Gordon Tullock	366	(7)
More Thought about Demand Revealing	373	(8)
9. VOTING METHODS AND POLITICAL MARKET BEHAVIOR
Proportional Representation	381	(14)
Democracy as It Really Is	395	(6)
A Bouquet of Governments	401	(12)
Thoughts about Representative Government	413	(14)
Voting, Different Methods and General Considerations	427	(10)
A Bouquet of Voting Methods	437	(12)
INDEX	449