Public Choice III

by Dennis C. Mueller

• ISBN13: 9780521815468
• ISBN10: 0521815460
• Edition: 3rd
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-02-17
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This book represents a considerable revision and expansion of Public Choice II (1989). Six new chapters have been added, and several chapters from the previous edition have been extensively revised. The discussion of empirical work in public choice has been greatly expanded. As in the previous editions, all of the major topics of public choice are covered. These include: why the state exists, voting rules, federalism, the theory of clubs, two-party and multiparty electoral systems, rent seeking, bureaucracy, interest groups, dictatorship, the size of government, voter participation, and political business cycles. Normative issues in public choice are also examined including a normative analysis of the simple majority rule, Bergson-Samuelson social welfare functions, the Arrow and Sen impossibility theorems, Rawls's social contract theory and the constitutional political economy of Buchanan and Tullock.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

Part I. Origins of the State: 2. The reason for collective choice - allocative efficiency

3. The reason for collective choice - redistribution

Part II. Public Choice in a Direct Democracy: 4. The choice of voting rule

5. Majority rule - positive properties

6. Majority rule - normative properties

7. Simple alternatives to majority rule

8. Complicated alternatives to majority rule

9. Exit, voice, and disloyalty

Part III. Public Choice in a Representative Democracy: 10. Federalism

11. Two-party competition - deterministic voting

12. Two-party competition - probabilistic voting

13. Multiparty systems

14. The paradox of voting

15. Rent seeking

16. Bureaucracy

17. Legislatures and bureaucracies

18. Dictatorship

Part IV. Applications and Testing: 19. Political competition and macroeconomic performance

20. Interest groups, campaign contributions, and lobbying

21. The size of government

22. Government size and economic performance

Part V. Normative public choice: 23. Social welfare functions

24. The impossibility of a social ordering

25. A just social contract

26. The constitution as a utilitarian contract

27. Liberal rights and social choices

Part VI. What Have We Learned?: 28. Has public choice contributed anything to the study of politics?

29. Allocation, redistribution, and public choice.