What Should Economists Do?

About this book

This volume is a collection of sixteen essays on three general topics: the methodology of economics the applicability of economic reasoning to political science and other social sciences and the relevance of economics as moral philosophy. Several essays are published here for the first time including Professor Alchian on Economic Method Natural and Artifactual Man and Public Choice and Ideology. This book provides relatively easy access to a wide range of work by a moral and legal philosopher a welfare economist who has consistently defended the primacy of the contractarian ethic a public finance theorist and a founder of the burgeoning subdiscipline of public choice. Buchanans work has spawned a methodological revolution in the way economists and other scholars think about government and government activity. As a measure of recognition for his significant contribution Dr. Buchanan was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Economics.