Public Choice III
Cambridge University Press
Edition: 3, 4/17/2003
EAN 9780521894753, ISBN10: 0521894751
Paperback, 722 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 4.1 cm
Language: English
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.
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.
'Like all the others, this volume will become the first point of reference - the 'bible' - for all scholars in the field, both the experts and the more casual samplers. It represents an amazing effort, even more extraordinary than the earlier versions. The profession is deeply in Mueller's debt.' Geoffrey Brennan, Australian National University