James M. Buchanan

James M. Buchanan is one of the originators of public choice theory and among the foremost economists of the 20th century. Together with Gordon Tullock, Buchanan revolutionized the way economists view political economy by introducing motivational symmetry between public and private actors. Before Buchanan's contributions, it was standard practice to view market failures as prima facie evidence of the need for government intervention. Public choice theory forced scholars to confront the fact that government failures may be worse than the market failures the government is introduced to correct.

James Buchanan is the cofounder, along with Gordon Tullock, of public choice theory. Buchanan entered the University of Chicago's graduate economics program as a 'libertarian socialist.' After six weeks of taking Frank Knight's course in price theory, recalls Buchanan, he had been converted into a zealous free marketer. Buchanan's next big conversion came while reading an article in German by Swedish economist Knut Wicksell. The obscure 1896 article's message was that only taxes and government spending that are unanimously approved can be justified.

Buchanan has been extraordinarily productive. He wrote over 300 articles and 75 reviews ... He is the author or co-author of 37 books ... The best-known work on public choice economics is The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy (1965), which Buchanan wrote with Tullock when both were at the University of Virginia. If this wasn't really the first book with public choice type of analysis, it did inspire large numbers of economists to pursue public choice and produce perhaps thousands of books and articles over the years.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the1986 Alfred Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences to Professor James McGill Buchanan, George Mason University, Virginia, USA, for his development of the contractual and constitutional bases for the theory of economic and political decision-making.

Why do good people almost always turn into scoundrels after they become part of the government? As Buchanan (b. 1919) explained, it's simply because they're pursuing their own interests. Along with Gordon Tullock, Buchanan helped pioneer 'public choice' economics which involves analyzing how government officials make their choices and pursue their self-interest, generating pressure for bigger budgets, higher taxes, more regulations and overall more power. Buchanan has explained how various constitutional arrangements affect the incentives officials face and the decisions they make.

James M. Buchanan, Nobel Prize winner in Economic Science, 1986, is currently Advisory General Director of the Center for Study of Public Choice, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Economics, Board of Visitors, President, and Faculty George Mason University 15 Oct 1999 ... Professor Buchanan ... taught at the University of Tennessee, Florida State University, University of Virginia, UCLA, and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University where he established the Center for Study of Public Choice. He moved from the Center to George Mason University in 1983.

Economist James M. Buchanan, winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize in Economic Science, is the Center's advisory general director. He is best known for developing the 'public choice theory' of economics, which changed the way economists analyze economic and political decision making. Professor Buchanan's work opened the door for the examination of how politicians' self-interest and non-economic forces affect government economic policy. ... After graduating from the University of Chicago with a Ph.D. in 1948, he held teaching positions at the University of Virginia, UCLA, and the Virginia Polytechnic Institute.

James Buchanan, the Nobel Laurate ..., was well known for his pioneering work in Public Choice (the application of economic principles to politics), constitutional economics (as a device for limiting government power), and many other key subjects in political economy ... Less well known ... is his thinking on the nature of economics itself. Considering his deep subjectivism and methodological individualism, Buchanan may be seen at least as a fellow traveler of the Austrian school ..., and I commend his writings ... to anyone interested in the tradition of Mises, Hayek, Rothbard, and Kirzner.

Buchanan attended the University of Chicago, taught during the formative period of his career at the University of Virginia, published articles in the American Economic Review and the Journal of Political Economy and books with the University of Chicago Press and Cambridge University Press, was named the Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association, and received National Science Foundation Grants as well as lucrative private foundation grants ... Buchanan has dissented from the mainstream trend in modern economic thinking throughout his career.

Economists and the Public was published in the same year as Keynes's General Theory, and many economists have wished that Hutt's thoughtful work had received the greater attention. James Buchanan, a Nobel Laureate for his own work in public choice who brought Hutt to the University of Virginia after Hutt's retirement in 1965, called it "one of Hutt's best works" ... [Hutt's] 1943 book Plan for Reconstruction has been lauded by James Buchanan ...

Nobel Laureate economist James Buchanan credits his mentor, noted economist Frank Knight, with teaching him to challenge everything and leading him to "push beyond the boundaries of orthodoxy in economics." Through his work in Public Choice, Buchanan has pushed those boundaries and challenged conventional thinking about the role of government ...
Buchanan's views of the political economy, spelled out in his Public Choice philosophy, have been the focus of discussion among his peers and have influenced scores of young economists ever since he published The Calculus of Consent ... in 1962.