The Economics of Public Choice

Citation

Salmon, P. (2005), "The Economics of Public Choice", International Journal of Social Economics, Vol. 32 No. 7, pp. 648-649. https://doi.org/10.1108/03068290510601162

In spite of the title, this is definitely not a textbook. The observation implies no criticism – except perhaps regarding the title, which may mislead buyers into thinking that they are offered a textbook when they are not. In fact, it can be argued as a general proposition that no true textbook on public choice is currently available and, again, this should not be deplored. Not only because, in social sciences, textbooks are often harmful, conveying a deceptive impression of consensus and certainty, but, more specifically here, because public choice is not a circumscribable domain of the kind that a textbook may claim to cover. It is at most a dimension or, to use McNutt's apt characterisation, a perspective. A consideration of politics, framed in a way congenial to economic analysis, can be introduced in most if not all areas of economics, while economists may indulge also, with the help of their own tools, in the analysis of political phenomena as a main subject. Nothing more specific should be said, more precise definitions being likely to prove unsustainable. There is something to say for the methodological recommendation that the discussion should remain strictly positive (i.e. non‐normative), but if this recommendation became definitional it would leave out of public choice major, and even founding, contributions. Rationality is a widely‐used assumption in public choice, but it should not become a compelling requirement, if only because insistence on it could well appear obsolete in the light of the promising work underway in psychological economics.

McNutt is not unduly concerned with disciplinary frontiers. He has an extended conception of the material that can be included in public choice. This attitude is reflected in the book to an increased degree in the second edition, in which two of the new chapters deal with fairness and with legal barriers to the entry of business firms, whereas the other two speculate on the evolution and interaction of capitalism and democracy in a worldwide context. These chapters, as well as several of those already included in the first edition, are made up of discussions of a very specific and personal or idiosyncratic kind. In fact, this is a general feature of the book. It is also present in the survey‐like chapters that deal with classical aspects of public choice such as voting, bureaucratic behaviour, rent‐seeking, and local government. Even there, the treatment tends to be unusual because it is full of personal interpretations and because it mixes, in a close way, pieces of the public choice perspective and more traditional elements of welfare economics and normative public finance (plus, as an additional ingredient – typically cumbersome mathematics).

The main merit of this curious book, pleasantly free of any consistent ideological or methodological bias, is that it reflects a remarkable lack of inhibition about offering unorthodox interpretations of the existing literature and personal insights on a variety of issues, some of these interpretations and insights, depending on the reader's priors, being quite interesting or stimulating. However, exclusive reliance on the book would be unwise. It does have a place in the library and, in a spirit of serendipity, it is largely worth reading, but only together with books of a more usual format, not as a substitute.