Table Of Content

Advanced Introduction to Public Choice Elgar Advanced Introductions are stimulating and thoughtful introductions to major fields in the social sciences and law, expertly written by the world's leading scholars. Designed to be accessible yet rigorous, they offer concise and lucid surveys of the substantive and policy issues associated with discrete subject areas. The aims of the series are two-fold: to pinpoint essential principles of a particular field, and to offer insights that stimulate critical thinking. By distilling the vast and often technical corpus of information on the subject into a concise and meaningful form, the books serve as accessible introductions for undergraduate and graduate students coming to the subject for the first time. Importantly, they also develop well-informed, nuanced critiques of the field that will challenge and extend the understanding of advanced students, scholars and policy-makers. For a full list of titles in the series please see the back of the book. Recent titles in the series include: Post Keynesian Economics The Law of International J.E. I<ing Organizations Jan l(labbers International Intellectual Property Susy Frankel and Daniel f. Gervais International Environmental Law Ellen Hey Public Manage1nent and Administration International Sales Law Christopher Pollitt Clayton P. Gillette Organised Crime Corporate Venturing Leslie Holmes Robert D. Hisrich Nationalism Public Choice Liah Greenfeld Randall G. Holcombe Advanced Introduction to Public Choice RANDALL G. HOLCOMBE De Voe Moore Professor ofE conomics, Florida State University, USA Elgar Advanced Introductions EE Edward Elgar PUBLISH ING Cheltenham, UK· Northampton, MA, USA © Randall G. Holcombe 2016 AU rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Published by Edward Elgar Publishing Lin1ited The Lypiatts 15 Lansdown Road Cheltenham Glos GL50 2JA UK Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc. William Pratt House 9 Dewey Court Northampton Massachusetts 01060 USA A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Control Number: 2016942172 ISBN 978 1 78536 204 o (cased) ISBN 978 1 78536 206 4 (paperback) ISBN 978 78536 205 7 (eBook) 1 Typeset by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire For Lora, Ross, Mark, and Connor Contents Preface Xl PART I INTRODUCTION 1 Public choice and public policy 3 Individual choice in markets versus collective choice in government 3 Economic analysis and public choice 4 Individual interests and the public interest 6 Three areas of inquiry 7 PART II AGGREGATING VOTER PREFERENCES 2 The politics of left and right 13 The distribution of political preferences 13 Electoral competition 14 Extreme candidates cannot win 17 Primaries and general elections 18 Third parties are not viable 20 Other factors 22 Aggregating voter preferences 22 3 Institutions: proportional versus plurality; parliamentary versus presidential 24 Constitutional constraints 24 Proportional versus plurality voting 25 Proportional voting and party tickets 27 Parliamentary versus presidential governments 28 Other institutional differences 29 Conclusion 30 VII VIII ADVANCED INTRODUCTION TO PUBLIC CHOICE 4 Political strategy: turnout and the distribution of preferences 32 Voter turnout 32 Voter polarization 33 Changing minds, or motivating turnout? 34 Designing a successful platform 35 Elections: good alternative to violence 38 Conclusion 38 5 Multidimensional issue space 40 What can prevent the issue space from collapsing to a single dimension? 40 A cyclical majority 41 Single-peaked preferences 42 Institutions and stability 44 Instability in multidimensional issue space 45 Why are political outcomes stable? 47 Conclusion 48 6 W hy do people vote? Rational ignorance, expressive so voting, rational irrationality Your vote will not affect the election outcome 51 Rational ignorance 52 Expressive voting 53 Rational irrationality 56 The charity of the uncharitable 57 Conclusion 58 PART III DESIGNING PUBLIC POLICY 7 Transaction costs and political exchange 63 The Coase theorem 64 Large numbers create high transaction costs 67 Secret ballots and transaction costs 68 Membership in the low-transaction cost group 69 The Coase theorem and the public interest 70 8 Political markets: interest groups, rent-seeking, and regulatory capture 73 The legislative marketplace 73 Interest group size and effectiveness 75 Who represents the public interest? 77 CONTENTS IX Rent-seeking 78 Regulatory capture 81 Conclusion 83 9 Bureaucracy 85 The budget maximization hypothesis 85 The bureau and its sponsor 87 Bureaucrats and the bargaining process 89 Bureaucratic efficiency 90 Conclusion 92 10 Political organization: districts, committees, and institutional design 94 Single-member districts and political competition 94 Two dimensions of political competition 96 The committee system 98 Seniority 100 Federalism 102 Conclusion 104 11 Political entrepreneurship 106 The political marketplace 107 Factors leading toward efficiency 109 Two types of entrepreneurial opportunities 110 Distributive policies and political entrepreneurship 111 Entrepreneurial bureaucrats 113 Will political entrepreneurship create instability? 114 Conclusion 117 PARTIV CONSTITUTIONAL DESIGN 12 Constitutional and post-constitutional decision-making 121 Politics as exchange: the unanimity criterion 122 Optimal decision-making rules 123 Optimal rules, more generally 124 Evaluating constitutional rules 125 Some criticisms 126 Are all political decisions post-constitutional? 127 The constitutional challenge 128 13 Interest groups and constitutional evolution 130 Government as a stationary bandit 131