Constitutional Political Economy in a Public Choice Perspective

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-v

   PDF

2. Introduction: The relevance of public choice for constitutional political economy

   • Charles K. Rowley

   Pages 1-10

3. Positive constitutional economics: A survey

   • Stefan Voigt

   Pages 11-53

4. Constitutions for new democracies: Reflections of turmoil or agents of stability?

   • Peter C. Ordeshook

   Pages 55-72

5. Toward a new constitution for a future country

   • Martin J. Bailey

   Pages 73-115

6. The balanced budget amendment: Clarifying the arguments

   • James M. Buchanan

   Pages 117-138

7. The prohibition-repeal amendments: A natural experiment in interest group influence

   • Michael Munger, Thomas Schaller

   Pages 139-163

8. Term limits and electoral competitiveness: Evidence from California’s state legislative races

   • Kermit Daniel, John R. Lott Jr.

   Pages 165-184

9. Choosing free trade without amending the U.S. Constitution

   • Willem Thorbecke

   Pages 185-200

10. Marginal cost sharing and the Articles of Confederation

    • Keith L. Dougherty, Michael J. G. Cain

    Pages 201-213

11. On the (relative) unimportance of a balanced budget

    • Laura Razzolini, William F. Shughart II

    Pages 215-233

12. Public choice in a federal system

    • Jean-Luc Migué

    Pages 235-254

13. Federalism and the European Union: A constitutional perspective

    • Dennis C. Mueller

    Pages 255-280

14. Subsidiarity and ecologically based taxation: A European constitutional perspective

    • Jürgen G. Backhaus

    Pages 281-310

15. Rule and policy spaces and economic progress: Lessons for Third World countries

    • Gerald W. Scully

    Pages 311-324

Constitutional political economy is a research program that directs inquiry to the working properties of rules and institutions within which individuals interact and to the processes through which these rules and institutions are chosen or come into being. This book makes the case for an approach to constitutional political economy that is grounded in consistent, hard-nosed public choice analysis. Effective institutional design is simply not feasible unless the designers build their structures to withstand rational choice pressures from the political market place. If mean, sensual man is here to stay, then let us, in our better moments, incorporate that knowledge into the institutions that must govern his behavior. A distinguished list of public choice scholars pursue this approach against a varying backcloth of constitutional issues relevant to the United States, Canada, Western Europe, the transition economies and the third world.

• Constitutions
• European Union
• European Union (EU)
• Federalism
• Geschäftsordnung
• Institutions
• Legislative
• constitution
• state

• Center for Study of Public Choice, George Mason University, USA

  Charles K. Rowley

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