Talk:Public choice

Errors

Public choice theory is certainly not the same thing same as rational choice theory. At most it can be said to be the application of rational choice theory to a certain area but even that is doubtful.

It is also not the same thing as social choice theory. Social choice theory studies purerly formal properties of voting systems while public choice studies the entire political process.

217.210.6.116 13:34, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The article seems to be biased, a blogpost on productivityshock says "I think the Wikipedia entry on public choice theory is rather heavily weighted toward criticism of the theory.

Then again, it could be that all of its critics truly are "noted" and "eminent" scholars, and that among intellectuals in all fields besides economics, public choice really is viewed "silly" and "absurd".

Mhm."

posted 2005.10.05 Wednesday

http://www.productivityshock.com/opportunity_to_selfpublish.htm

maybe. It should also mention that it is a "sub-field" of rational choice theory. (see page 66 of [i]Theory and Methods in Political Science[/i] 2nd edition edited by David Marsh and Gerry Stoker.)

NPOV Dispute - Criticism

The criticism section makes overly broad statements outside of direct quotations. Statements such as "a silly attempt to extend absurd theories of economics" are clearly biased when presented without qualification or attribution.

This section also suggests the disciplines such as sociology have unanimously dismissed public choice without internal dispute or discussion.

Direct quotations or examples from critics should re-enforce the general statements given. --Trevor 19:20, 25 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And so why is it that herein public choice theorists have their Nobel prizes called “Bank of Sweden” prizes, and their critics have their Bank of Sweden prizes called “Nobel” prizes? I swear that Wikipedia is a rolling disaster when it comes to the social sciences, because so many participants have so little regard for protocols attempting to get at a best approximation of the truth. This d_mn'd thing is an ugly exercise in spin. --Gamahucheur 06:25, 15 Feb 2006 (PST)

A change was made by an anonymous user to use the "Bank of Sweden" term to refer to Sen as well but was quickly reverted. I have changed it back to be consistent with the immediately previous line that uses the more correct "Bank of Sweden" name for the prize. The quote from McQuaig still refers to the "Nobel Prize" which is appropriate for a direct quote. --Trevor 19:18, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Rehaul the whole thing

This article is an adomination. Regardless of your feelings about Public Choice theory, it is easy to see that this article is horribly biased. I agree with above commentator - there seems to be an inability to follow wikipedia protocol of objectivity when reporting on social sciences, or anything of the slightest controversy. Why do people not understand that wikipedia is not a platform to voice an opinion about something one way or another?

I think part of the problem is that, when it comes to these kind of issues, people are so seeped in their own biases that they really don't even see the distinction between fact and opinion. They believe so strongly in their opinion, that they take it to be an established consensus.

Public Choice theory certainly lies somewhat outside of mainstream economics. However, it does have contributions and concepts that are considered valid. The question of its legitimacy is not one of complete rejection, but rather to what degree its theories can be taken. Public choice has its Nobel (bank of sweden, doesn't matter, its all the same for economics, which is what we are discussing) prize winners, and it is not the fringe theory this article seems to present it as. Public choice is NOT the phrenology of economics.

Having a criticism section that is longer than the information section is just too absurd to defend. This entire thing reads like a sloppy write up by someone who is attempting to bring it up for the purpose of casually dismissing it.

Maybe a good model to base this article on would be the Austrian School of Economics. This is another similiar school that lies outside the mainsteam, while still having contributed valuable concepts to economic thought. Its article is written well, without being gushy, and puts it in the proper context, while devoting the majority of the article to doing what an encyclopedia is supposed to do - explaining the topic! The purpose is to give information about the topic in question.

This is a horrid article. If nobody objects, I say we start rewriting it from scratch, starting with an outline.

208.252.21.146 15:33, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually except for the criticism section the article's not too bad though it could use some more details so I don't know if starting from scratch is necessary.radek 23:49, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the need for a comprehensive overhaul. I can't say that I see the information section as particularly good. For example, it doesn't actually mention Arrow's impossibility theorem (mention only occurred when I injected it into the criticism section), and the impression is lent that much or all of public choice theory involves little more and little less than carrying all of the standard simplifying H. economicus assumptions from market theory to political theory. Whatever were the intentions of the authors of the information sections, what most of them jointly provided was little more than a minimal, deformed skeleton on which to hang the subsequent attack. The core of the criticism itself rather obviously comes from someone who may have read all manner of secondary and tertiary sources, but who hasn't worked his way throguh much if any of the primary material.Gamahucheur 06:08, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! thats exactly the way I'm reading this article. Most pertinent, as your mentioned: the information that is present seems to exist merely as an introduction to the criticism. It portrays Public Choice as some fringe concept that can be dismissed offhand. It just isn't approached from the right angle.. lets redo it.

[Rehaul]

I agree that the article should be rehauled and I would be happy to help. Here is a long set of comments:

Line 3: It would be more correct to say that public choice theory is “related” to rational choice theory, etc.

Regarding the Pareto observation, it is best to see public choice theory (PCT), at its point of origin in economics, as a reaction to the policy economics of A. C. Pigou (microeconomic policy) and of J. M. Keynes or at least of his successors (macroeconomic policy). The work emanating from these schools of thought implicitly assumed the “benevolent despot” view of government. The main goal of the “Virginia School” was to show that those responsible for making and implementing policy in a democracy ought not to be relied upon to act “in the general interest,” as the benevolent despot theory assumed they do. Pareto had a similar negative reaction to the reformers of his day and sought to develop an explanation of their behavior. But, to my knowledge, he did not have the goal of “improving democracy” by understanding it. In any case, he did not develop a theory of collective decision-making. The major historical reference here is not Pareto but Swedish economist Knut Wicksell.

The idea that PCT aims to “reveal certain systematic trends towards inefficient government policies” may capture the aims of some practitioners. But PCT, as a field of study, does not have such an aim. It is true that PCT employs an “efficiency ideal” as a benchmark. But employing an ideal is not a peculiar characteristic of PCT. It is a characteristics of economics and, for that matter, of social science in general.

PCT theorists try to build an ideal and then to contrast reality with the ideal. Such a procedure is the only widely-approved means of studying “what is” in the complex fields of social interaction. The theorists who build an ideal (or at least those who are sensitive to the complexity of the phenomena) do not pretend that the ideal is attainable.

By the way, PCT tries to build an ideal by asking the following question. What kind of collective decision-making process would enable members of a collective to best achieve their goals? Because of this, the ideal can be used, with a strong measure of caution, as a benchmark for evaluating at least some of the characteristics of real democracies. If one thinks that he knows what members of a particular collective want, he can assess the institutions that exist on the basis of whether they help members get what they want. But making assessments of this sort is difficult and hazardous.

There is little relationship between whether a government policy is good (in the usual economic sense of benefits and costs) and rational ignorance. Even if everyone knew the effects of policies and of the likelihood that a candidates for elected office would implement them (which are heroic assumptions), one cannot deduce that the policies chosen in a democracy would be good. Whether policies would be good in general depends more on the institutions that are created to constrain actions for which costs are most certainly (i.e., most evidently) greater than benefits.

The paragraph that begins with a statement about good government should be rewritten. It should be about how government policies are determined partly by special interests. The author should refrain from making or implying judgments about whether collective decisions that are influenced by special interests are better than or worse than collective decisions that are not so influenced. A more specific point is that all interests are “special.” When PCT shows the “possibility” of government failure in the presence of pressure groups and lobbying, it does not imply that there is some alternative to this. It merely suggests that there may be grounds for constitution-type limits on the scope of the collective decisions, such as supra-majority rule, budget constraints, and public disclosure requirements.

The idea of government failure was a reaction to the benevolent despot theorists who claimed that if there is market failure, a market intervention is warranted. An intervention is not warranted, PCT suggested, if democratic governments cannot be relied on to implement what economists judge to be the right policy. Because there are good theoretical reasons (pressure groups for example) to think that a democratic government cannot be relied on, we can say that government failure may trump market failure. Like bad weather, economists may just have to tolerate market failure. There may be a theoretical remedy but there is no practical one.

Regarding the choice of representatives of Public Choice theory, I would place more emphasis on those who have tried to deal with the thorny problem of building a constitution. It is here that the principle foundational issues in a theory of collective decision-making arise. Those who merely build self-interest models of various political actors are contributors but I would not regard them as fundamental thinkers. Thus, I certainly would include William Riker as a major figure. Knut Wicksell, F. A. Hayek might also be mentioned as inspirations.

It occurs to me that the author may not realize that PCT is not an exclusive endeavor of professional economists. Rather than a bridge to non-economics disciplines, one might think of it as a joint endeavor.

One might add the following link, if it is not regarded as too commercial:

http://nomadpress.com/public_choice/34432.html

Chenin Blanc NOT nonsense

ahhh typical of economists that they cannot understand the REAL LIFE associations of economics in this world. Chenin Blanc HAS been closely related to public choice and I would LOVE to see someone dispute this. Ah... Can we at least see this article redone, and THEN discuss the Chenin addition?

Talk:Social Choice and Individual Values

Announcement: The above is the discussion tab for a new article Social Choice and Individual Values. Input is welcome through the article, the Talk page, or to me. The plan is to gather comment, corrections, or suggestions for probably at least a couple of weeks, make final changes, then go from there. Links to related articles (including the present one) would come after revision. Thanks for your help.

Thomasmeeks 16:29, 29 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Thomas,

I just wanted to mention that I found out about public choice theory through reading a few blogs which were speaking of the "The Wisdom of Crowds". Here are the links, I hope you find them helpful:

How To Save The World - Links for the week

Kottke on The Wisdom of Crowds

--Jaycorrales 03:51, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thx, Jay. Just got back. BW, Thomasmeeks 17:14, 30 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Public Choice/Public choice theory

As the PC article was started as a POV fork according to to its second edit summary, it absolutely needs to be folded back into a single article. However I don't have the technical know-how to execute such a content edit accurately. -- nae'blis _(talk) 20:04, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I merged the articles as per above. However, my knowledge on the topic is limited so I could not clean up the article well. Morphh 20:42, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A minimalist clean-up

That's what attempted, dropping virtually nothing but clarifying, documenting, rearranging. The intent was to reconcile without taking sides. A neutral POV can be maintained without losing the excitment of the subject. Thomasmeeks 17:30, 30 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Public Choice Theory

Great work on the PCT article. Feel free to remove the cleanup banner when you feel comfortable with it. You've satisfied my reasons for adding it. Morphh 13:19, 2 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that's pretty authoritative. Thx, Morphh. You were right to post the banner, and I wouldn't have been emboldened to act without it. I may do a bit more on the article, but I'll return the honor of retiring the banner to you.

I think that the substance is there, but the article could still use some concision. Wish that there were a banner for that. Maybe there should be. Or I could at least post this on the PCT Talk page. BW, Thomasmeeks 11:43, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This article seems now to be more of a jumble than when I started it. There is a big disconnect, it seems to me, between the idea that public choice theory is the study of collective decision-making on the basis of the assumption that actors are self-interested and the idea that there can be both positive and normative public choice. No doubt, by expressing the second idea, one or more of the contributors invited all sorts of criticism of the theory. What people call normative public choice theory is merely the use of models of collective decision making to support a claim that some particular policy or institutional change should be made. Such a use of public choice theory is an APPLICATION of the theory and thus should be discussed in a supplementary section on "applications" rather than touted as part of what public choice theory is.

Another mistake, it seems to me is to use the term "behavior." Public choice theory does not study behavior, which is a much broader concept. It builds models or images of choosing actors. It contrasts the models with real behavior, of course. But again, this is an application of the theory. Not the theory itself.

A third mistake is to use the term "rational," as if self-interested action could be irrational.

In brief, practically all of the introductory paragaph should be deleted. The problem may be due to how this subject got started. It was first "Public Choice," which seemed to me to have been written by a critic of public choice theory. Rather than jettison this first effort and replace it with my own, I chose to write a different article on "Public Choice Theory" and to provide a link from the "Public Choice" article. True to the title, I tried to avoid any implication that the people involved in building the theory are part of a social or political movement.

At this stage, I am not sure that I see much hope for rectifying the situation. This is a shame because I think that the act of building collective decision models is very enlightening to the builder because it reveals the incentives that are likely to be faced by real people who occupy positions in everyday life that are similar to those occupied by actors in the model. For example, we build a model of a bureau chief in interaction with a legislature, a chief executive and lower-level bureaucrats in which we are able to identify incentives that seem specific or partly unique. We define that position and those incentives as the "role of the bureaucrat." And when we observe "real bureau chiefs," we suspect that they may be acting in a similar role and, therefore, face similar incentives. We think that we already know something about them because we have built a model. We are thus "enlightened."

To some degree, I regret having started this article.

Pat Gunning (11/1/06)

Hey, Pat I can't say what your article looked like when you started it. But the lead was a tangle when I edited it (following a clean-up template of someone else who removed it after I my edit). My revisions were an attempt to clarify & correct what was there. I used Gordon Tullock's New Palgrave article to sort things out. If my edits misintepreted Tullock (or, more improbably, you think he got it wrong), you're welcome to fix it. Thomasmeeks 22:15, 4 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What?

"...which hearkens back to the earlier name and interdisciplinary origin of economics but should not to be conflated with the..."

hopiakuta ; [[ <nowiki> </nowiki> { [[%c2%a1]] [[%c2%bf]] [[ %7e%7e%7e%7e ]] } ;]] 14:59, 21 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Second sentence now clear as mud, right? Thomasmeeks 22:33, 4 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

«The book has a marked positive-economics flavor but in a consensualist ethical context.» in Origin, 2nd paragraph. This is economists' jargon.

Hope the Edit helps. BW, Thomasmeeks 16:08, 23 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is Kenneth Arrow a public-choice theorist?

Not in standard usage, as observed by the JEL classification codes referred in the lead of the article. JEL D71 includes "social choice" and excludes most "public choice" articles according to an Advanced Google Scholar search. It would not if "social choice" theory was a subset of "public choice" theory. There is overlap in some articles to be sure, but that only means that one could write on both subjects and use 2 methods and literatures in one article. Duncan Black is credited by Gordon Tullock as being the "father" of PCT. Arrow recognizes Black in his own work, but that does not make Arrow a public choice theorist. It only means that Black influenced both fields. Thomasmeeks 23:36, 23 December 2006 (UTC) (typo edit)Thomasmeeks 12:07, 24 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, there is overlap of the JEL codes. More generally, the JEL codes are far from a perfect taxonomy, as their formulators would admit, and as anyone who has done much literature review should see.
No one has claimed that SCT is a subset of PCT. It is an insult to your opponent and to your audience to wale on an obvious strawman.
The relevant questions here are:

Is the definition of “public choice theory” in this article appropriate? If it is not, then it needs to be rewritten. In any event, note that at present it does not define PCT as exactly and only that which the JEL classifies with the PCT code, nor does the definition wave-away anything that otherwise might be recognize as in the intersection of PCT and SCT.
Does the Arrow Impossibility Theorem come under public choice theory as defined in this article? If the Theorem does, then for the purposes of this article the theorem is PCT.

4. The point of referring to Black is that you argued that PCT began with The Calculus of Consent, and that Arrow's IT, having come before TCoC was thus demonstrably not PCT. Black's work comes before both TCoC and the IT, so your claim is exploded. It is unacceptable for you to pretend that I was referring to Black for other purposes. Cease.

—SlamDiego 06:34, 25 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Happy holidays, fellow pilgrim. Thomasmeeks 13:06, 25 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Happy holidays to you. May copies of Clark, Wicksteed, and Davenport have been found under your tree. —SlamDiego 18:25, 25 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]