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James M. Buchanan

Chicago School of Economics
Birth	October 3, 1919 (1919-10-03) (age 90) Murfreesboro, Tennessee
Nationality	United States
Field	Macroeconomics
Alma mater	University of Chicago University of Tennessee State Teachers College, Murfreesboro
Influences	Frank Knight Knut Wicksell
Contributions	Public choice theory
Awards	Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (1986)
Information at IDEAS/RePEc

James McGill Buchanan, Jr. (born October 3, 1919) is an American economist known for his work on public choice theory, for which he won the 1986 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. Buchanan's work initiated research on how politicians' self-interest and non-economic forces affect government economic policy.

Biography

Buchanan graduated from State Teachers College, Murfreesboro in 1940. He completed his M.S. from the University of Tennessee in 1941. He spent the war years on the staff of Admiral Nimitz in Honolulu, and it is during that time he met and married his wife Anne.

He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1948 where he was much influenced by Frank H. Knight. It was also at Chicago that he read for the first time and found enlightening the work of Knut Wicksell. Photographs of Knight and Wicksell have hung from his office-walls ever since.

Buchanan has been the founder of a new Virginia school of political economy. He was at the University of Virginia (founding the Thomas Jefferson center), UCLA, Florida State University, the University of Tennessee, and the Virginia Polytechnic Institute (with the Center for the Study of Public Choice]). In 1983 he moved to George Mason University with the Center to its new home at GMU.^[1]

Buchanan's work includes extensive writings on public finance, the public debt, voting, rigorous analysis of the theory of logrolling, macroeconomics, and libertarian theory.

List of publications

• The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan by James M. Buchanan, at the Library of Economics and Liberty. Twenty-volume work, copyrighted but nine of the 20 volumes are free to read and access; fully searchable online. Includes:
• A list of Buchanan's Publications from 1949 to 1986 can be found at The Scandinavian Journal Of Economics, 1987, Vol. 39. No. 1, pp. 17-37.

• Public Principles of Public Debt: A Defense and Restatement, by James M. Buchanan, at the Library of Economics and Liberty
• The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy, by James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, at the Library of Economics and Liberty
• Public Finance in Democratic Process: Fiscal Institutions and Individual Choice, by James M. Buchanan, at the Library of Economics and Liberty
• The Demand and Supply of Public Goods, by James M. Buchanan, at the Library of Economics and Liberty
• Cost and Choice: An Inquiry in Economic Theory, by James M. Buchanan, at the Library of Economics and Liberty
• The Limits of Liberty: Between Anarchy and Leviathan, by James M. Buchanan, at the Library of Economics and Liberty
• Democracy in Deficit: The Political Legacy of Lord Keynes, by James M. Buchanan and Richard E. Wagner, at the Library of Economics and Liberty
• The Power to Tax: Analytical Foundations of a Fiscal Constitution, by Geoffrey Brennan and James M. Buchanan, at the Library of Economics and Liberty
• The Reason of Rules: Constitutional Political Economy, by Geoffrey Brennan and James M. Buchanan, at the Library of Economics and Liberty

• Complete 20-volume list of The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan by James M. Buchanan, at the publisher, Liberty Fund.
• Why I, Too, Am Not a Conservative: The Normative Vision of Classical Liberalism (Cheltenham UK: Edward Elgar, 2005)
• Economics from the Outside In: Better than Plowing and Beyond (College Station: Texas A&M Press, 2007)

See also

• Public Choice Theory
• Gordon Tullock
• Social contract
• The Trap (TV Documentary Series) Buchanan features in "The Trap", a BBC documentary.

References

• Kasper, Sherryl. The Revival of Laissez-Faire in American Macroeconomic Theory: A Case Study of Its Pioneers (2002) ch 6
• Buchanan, James M. Better than Plowing and Other Personal Essays (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992)
• Pittard, Homer. The First Fifty Years (Murfreesboro, TN: Middle Tennessee State College, 1961) pp. 136,173
• Anthony B. Atkinson, 'James M. Buchanan's Contributions to Economics', The Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 1987, Vol. 89, No. 1, pp. 5-15.

External links

• Biography at GMU
• YouTube Reflections on the Life and Work of James Buchanan
• Biography of James M. Buchanan at the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics
• IDEAS/RePEc
• Inaugural James M. Buchanan Lecture 2006 'The Hobbes Problem: From Machiavelli to Buchanan' by Deirdre McCloskey.