IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/mes/postke/v27y2004i1p3-18.html

What is wrong with public choice

Author

Listed:
  • STEVEN PRESSMAN

Abstract

Three problems plague the public choice perspective. First, it cannot explain why people vote, changes in voting behavior, or the actual votes of people. Second, public choice cannot predict the behavior of politicians. It cannot help us understand the sorts of people who run for public office, why candidates run for office promising less government, nor help us understand the actual votes cast by elected politicians. Finally, evidence about the growth of government runs counter to the claims of the public choice school. The paper concludes with some suggestions about how and why public choice has gone wrong.

Suggested Citation

  • Steven Pressman, 2004. "What is wrong with public choice," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(1), pages 3-18.
    • Handle: RePEc:mes:postke:v:27:y:2004:i:1:p:3-18
    DOI: 10.1080/01603477.2004.11051423
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/01603477.2004.11051423
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/01603477.2004.11051423?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Agell, Jonas & Lindh, Thomas & Ohlsson, Henry, 1997. "Growth and the public sector: A critical review essay," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 33-52, February.
    2. Knack, Stephen, 1993. "The Voter Participation Effects of Selecting Jurors from Registration Lists," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(1), pages 99-114, April.
    3. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65(2), pages 135-135.
    4. repec:cup:apsrev:v:62:y:1968:i:01:p:25-42_11 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Peltzman, Sam, 1980. "The Growth of Government," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 23(2), pages 209-287, October.
    6. repec:cup:apsrev:v:62:y:1968:i:1:p:25-42_1 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Kinder, Donald R. & Kiewiet, D. Roderick, 1981. "Sociotropic Politics: The American Case," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 11(2), pages 129-161, April.
    8. Kau, James B & Rubin, Paul H, 1979. "Self-Interest, Ideology, and Logrolling in Congressional Voting," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(2), pages 365-384, October.
    9. Brennan,Geoffrey & Buchanan,James M., 2006. "The Power to Tax," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521027922.
    10. A. B. Atkinson, 1999. "The Economic Consequences of Rolling Back the Welfare State," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262011719, December.
    11. repec:cup:apsrev:v:59:y:1965:i:01:p:7-28_07 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Peltzman, Sam, 1980. "The Growth of Government," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 23(2), pages 209-287, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nuñez, Manuel, 2021. "How China escaped shock therapy: the market reform debate from Isabella Weber: book rewiev," SocArXiv ea4d7, Center for Open Science.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Thomas A. Garrett & Russell M. Rhine, 2006. "On the size and growth of government," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 88(Jan), pages 13-30.
    2. James Kau & Paul Rubin, 1981. "The size of government," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 37(2), pages 261-274, January.
    3. Günther G. Schulze & Heinrich W. Ursprung, 1999. "Globalisation of the Economy and the Nation State," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(3), pages 295-352, May.
    4. Tridimas, George & Winer, Stanley L., 2005. "The political economy of government size," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 643-666, September.
    5. Gerald Scully, 1989. "The size of the state, economic growth and the efficient utilization of national resources," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 63(2), pages 149-164, November.
    6. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    7. Randall Holcombe, 2005. "Government growth in the twenty-first century," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 124(1), pages 95-114, July.
    8. Henrik Jacobsen Kleven & Claus Thustrup Kreiner & Emmanuel Saez, 2016. "Why Can Modern Governments Tax So Much? An Agency Model of Firms as Fiscal Intermediaries," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 83(330), pages 219-246, April.
    9. Dennis Mueller & Peter Murrell, 1986. "Interest groups and the size of government," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 48(2), pages 125-145, January.
    10. Thomas A. Garrett & Andrew F. Kozak & Russell M. Rhine, 2010. "Institutions and government growth: a comparison of the 1890s and the 1930s," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 92(Mar), pages 109-120.
    11. Stavins, Robert, 2004. "Introduction to the Political Economy of Environmental Regulations," RFF Working Paper Series dp-04-12, Resources for the Future.
    12. Hyun Park, 2010. "Fiscal Policy and Equitable Growth," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(1), pages 121-140, February.
    13. Philip Grossman, 1987. "The optimal size of government," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 53(2), pages 131-147, January.
    14. Mulligan, Casey B. & Gil Sala-I-Martin X., Ricard, 2002. "Social Security and Democracy," Working Papers 180, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    15. Chang, Alex Chuan-hsien, 2018. "How do Asian values constrain public support for redistribution?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 139-150.
    16. Matsusaka, John G, 2000. "Fiscal Effects of the Voter Initiative in the First Half of the Twentieth Century," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 43(2), pages 619-650, October.
    17. John E. Filer & Donald L. Moak & Barry Uze, 1988. "Why Some States Adopt Lotteries and others Don'T," Public Finance Review, , vol. 16(3), pages 259-283, July.
    18. Besley, Timothy & Smart, Michael, 2007. "Fiscal restraints and voter welfare," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(3-4), pages 755-773, April.
    19. Deepak Lal, 1991. "Social Policy After Socialism," UCLA Economics Working Papers 641, UCLA Department of Economics.
    20. Jørgen Andersen, 2012. "Costs of taxation and the size of government," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 153(1), pages 83-115, October.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mes:postke:v:27:y:2004:i:1:p:3-18. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/MPKE20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.