The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan

  • The Calculus of Consent

    by James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock

    The Calculus of Consent was co-authored by Buchanan with Gordon Tullock, with whom Buchanan collaborated on many books and academic enterprises throughout their careers. As Robert D. Tollison states in the foreword, “[this book] is a radical departure from the way democracies conduct their business. The Calculus is already a book for the ages.” This classic work analyzes the political…

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  • Choice, Contract, and Constitutions

    by James M. Buchanan

    Constitutional political economy is the theme of the papers collected in this volume. This entire area of contemporary economic thought is a legacy of James M. Buchanan. In outlining the importance of this volume to the contemporary study of economics and to the work of James M. Buchanan, Robert D. Tollison states in his foreword, “Buchanan literally founded the field…

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  • The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan

    by James M. Buchanan

    This monumental twenty-volume series presents the writings of James M. Buchanan, one of the great twentieth-century scholars of liberty. Buchanan, the Nobel laureate in Economics in 1986, has much wisdom to offer—not just to academics and economists—but to all who seek to understand the challenges and opportunities of governance in our age. The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan includes…

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  • Cost and Choice

    by James M. Buchanan

    While relatively short, Cost and Choice, according to Hartmut Kliemt in the foreword, “holds quite a central place in Buchanan’s work. For the fundamental economic notion of ‘cost’, or ‘opportunity cost’, is intimately related to the individualist and subjectivist perspective that is so essential to the Buchanan enterprise.” To be sure, the Austrian School of economists enunciated similar views of…

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  • Debt and Taxes

    by James M. Buchanan

    While this volume presents the important writings of James M. Buchanan on taxation and debt, Geoffrey Brennan makes it clear in the foreword that the thrust of Buchanan’s work in this area has been to integrate theories of taxation and debt with public-expenditure theory. Therefore, the editors strongly urge that the present volume on taxation and debt be read in…

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  • The Demand and Supply of Public Goods

    by James M. Buchanan

    Public-goods theory constituted a major element in James M. Buchanan’s research agenda throughout the 1960s. The Demand and Supply of Public Goods is a major part of that work. At the time that Buchanan was elaborating on his theories of public goods, the prevailing trend in public economics was the emergence of public-expenditure theory, which attempted to form a comprehensive…

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  • Democracy in Deficit

    by James M. Buchanan and Richard E. Wagner

    Democracy in Deficit is one of the early comprehensive attempts to apply the basic principles of public-choice analysis to macroeconomic theory and policy. According to Robert D. Tollison in the foreword, “The central purpose of the book was to examine the simple precepts of Keynesian economics through the lens of public-choice theory. The basic discovery was that Keynesian economics had…

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  • Economic Inquiry and Its Logic

    by James M. Buchanan

    Economic Inquiry and Its Logic presents a collection of Buchanan’s most representative works in economic method and analysis. As Robert D. Tollison points out in his foreword, “[Included] in this volume are some of [Buchanan’s] most often cited works on methodology, including papers reflecting his emphasis on the subjective nature of opportunity costs and the implications of this subjectivity for…

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  • Externalities and Public Expenditure Theory

    by James M. Buchanan

    In his foreword, Geoffrey Brennan states, “The papers in this volume represent a coherent set of pieces focused on aspects of public-expenditure theory and constitute all of Buchanan’s papers in this area.” Buchanan’s work on the subject of what governments should do and his insistence on Knut Wicksell’s ideal that taxation and public expenditure be integrated topics have contributed significantly…

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  • Federalism, Liberty, and the Law

    by James M. Buchanan

    As diverse as the papers presented in this volume may seem at first glance, all of them touch on two characteristic themes of James Buchanan’s work: the respect for individual sovereignty and the threat of monopoly power on the rights of the individual. In his foreword, Hartmut Kliemt says, “As opposed to more extreme and more utopian libertarians, [Buchanan] well…

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  • Ideas, Persons, and Events

    by James M. Buchanan

    This final volume (save for the Index) in Liberty Fund’s The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan acquaints us most intimately with the man himself. Included are essays and short pieces that shed light on Buchanan’s view of the world. Ranging from personal reflections on the art and science of economics, to restatements of his central themes and reminiscences of…

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  • Indexes

    by

    This volume presents a comprehensive index to the entire series of The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan. Included is an annotated copy of the entire curriculum vitae, indicating in which volume in the series the various items appear and, correspondingly, those items that have been omitted. As the editors observe, “This is a series that no serious scholar of…

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