Randall G Holcombe
Biographic Data
| ID | 514044 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Randall G Holcombe |
| GIVEN NAMES | Randall G |
| FAMILY NAME | Holcombe |
| SIGNATURE | HOLCOMBE R G |
| AFFILIATIONS | Florida State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7038-0999 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 75 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 158 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 75 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1977 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Politics as Exchange: An Analysis of the Political Marketplace
Political institutions have been depicted by academics as a marketplace where citizens transact with each other to accomplish collective ends difficult to accomplish otherwise. This depiction supports a romantic notion of democracy in which democratic governments are accountable to their citizens, and act in their best interests. In Politics as Exchange, Randall Holcombe explains why this view of democracy is too optimistic. He argues that while …
Mehrdad Vahabi, The Legacy of Janos Kornai: Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. 2025. xix + 343 Pages. USD 129.99 (hardback)
Are social contracts possible without actual negotiation
This article addresses one of the several moral arguments for the state, the social contract argument, showing that this argument has been inadequately justified. The terms of any contract are determined by negotiation among the parties to the contract. The terms of any contract cannot be known absent actual negotiation to produce them. Social contract theorists widely believe that actual negotiation and actual agreement with a social contract di…
Following Their Leaders: Political Preferences and Public Policy
Models of democratic decision-making tend to assume that voters have preferences and that candidates adjust their platforms to conform with those preferences; however, the direction of causation is largely the opposite. Political elites offer policy platforms to voters, and voters adopt those policies - they follow their leaders. Following Their Leaders argues that policies are designed by the elite and the electorate has little say. Preferences …
The transformative impact of rent-seeking theory on the study of public choice
Following Their Leaders: Political Preferences and Public Policy
Coordination, Cooperation, and Control: The Evolution of Economic and Political Power
James M. Buchanan’s constitutional project: Past and future
Progressive Democracy: The ideology of the modern predatory state
James M. Buchanan and Liberal Political Economy: A Rational Reconstruction
Transitional gains and rent extraction
Political Capitalism: How Political Influence Is Made and Maintained
The concept of political capitalism -- Political capitalism as an economic system -- The political and economic elite -- Interest groups and political exchange -- Political creation of economic rents -- Transitional gains and rent extraction -- The regulatory state -- Capitalism versus democracy -- The institutional evolution of political capitalism -- Public policy and political capitalism -- Is political capitalism inevitable
Corruption and destructive entrepreneurship
Political Capitalism: How Economic and Political Power Is Made and Maintained
Interest group support for non-group issues
Political incentives for rent creation
Advanced Introduction to Public Choice
Public Choice and Austrian Economics
Austrian economics is a school of thought, while public choice is an area of inquiry, so one way to analyze the two together is to look at how the Austrian school approaches the subject matter of public choice. There are substantial and long-standing areas of commonality between Austrian ideas and the literature in public choice, but most Austrian school contributions to public choice are in the form of critiques of the ideas of public-choice the…
David Reisman: James Buchanan
A Theory of the Theory of Public Goods
Regulation and corruption
A Theory of the Theory of Public Goods
Politics as exchange: The classical liberal economics and politics of James M. Buchanan
Producing Prosperity: An Inquiry Into the Operation of the Market Process
The substantial prosperity that characterizes market economies at the beginning of the twenty-first century is relatively recent in human history. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, economic progress was so slow that people would not have been able to recognize it in their lifetimes, whereas today, economic progress is so much a part of people’s lives that they take it for granted. In this new volume, Randall G. Holcombe argues that economic ana…
Lawrence H. White: The clash of economic ideas: the great policy debates and experiments of the last hundred years
The median voter model in public choice theory
Planning and the invisible hand: Allies or adversaries
Sometimes planning is designed to counteract market forces, revealing an adversarial relationship between planning and the invisible hand. Other times, planning builds on the spontaneous order of the market and the two will be allies. This article offers two related arguments on the division between top-down planning and the bottom-up planning produced by the spontaneous order of the market. First, planning as a whole has insufficiently appreciat…
The regulation of lobbyists
Regulation and corruption
Veterans interests and the transition to government growth: 1870–1915
Institutional quality and the tenure of autocrats
The stability of international coalitions in United Nations voting from 1946 to 1973
Progressive Democracy: The ideology of the modern predatory state
Evidence on voter preferences from unrestricted choice referendums
Government growth in the twenty-first century
Constitutions as constraints: A case study of three american constitutions
Political incentives for rent creation
Empirical evidence on the publicness of state legislative activities
Non-optimal unanimous agreement
Transitional gains and rent extraction
The Growth of Local Government in the United States From 1820 to 1870
As the United States became more urbanized in the nineteenth century, local-government expenditures increased as local governments expanded their services in response to their growing populations. Expenditures at all levels of government increased substantially in the nineteenth century, but local governments grew more than either the states or the federal government. Total local-government expenditures increased along with the growing urban popu…
A note on seniority and political competition
Contractarian model of the decline in classical liberalism
James M. Buchanan’s constitutional project: Past and future
Politics as exchange: The classical liberal economics and politics of James M. Buchanan
The Unanimous Voting Rule is not the Political Equivalent to Market Exchange
Optimality and the institutional structure of bureaucracy
The appeal of minimum wage laws: A dynamic analysis
A method for estimating the GNP loss from a future oil embargo
A Theory of the Theory of Public Goods
The appeal of minimum wage laws: A dynamic analysis
A method for estimating the GNP loss from a future oil embargo
Optimality and the institutional structure of bureaucracy
An evaluation of some microeconomic consequences of a future oil embargo
Contractarian model of the decline in classical liberalism
An estimation of the lag structure of the economic impact of an oil embargo
On the distribution of federal taxes and expenditures, and the new war between the states
An economic analysis of democracy
Non-optimal unanimous agreement
Government By Contract
Many organizations have characteristics that normally are associated with govern-ments, but which are created by private contract. Neighborhood associations and condominium associations are examples. These organizations often provide public goods, have the power to tax their members, and are governed democratically. They tend to be created by an entrepreneur who creates a contractual government and then sells shares in the government along with p…
The median voter model in public choice theory
A note on seniority and political competition
Constitutions as constraints: A case study of three american constitutions
Barriers to Entry and Political Competition
Models of electoral competition tend to focus on competition between parties, but there are more significant alliances among incumbents of different parties than between incumbents and non-incumbents of the same party. The coalition of incumbents uses barriers to entry to place challengers at a competitive disadvantage, which frees incumbents from having to strictly follow the desires of the voters. This enhances the benefits of holding office. M…
The regulation of lobbyists
Empirical evidence on the publicness of state legislative activities
Vibert's vision: Constitutional theory in search of a constitution
The stability of international coalitions in United Nations voting from 1946 to 1973
Peter Kurrild-Klitgaard, Rational choice, action, and the paradox of rebellion
Veterans interests and the transition to government growth: 1870–1915
Writing Off Ideas: Taxation, Philanthropy and America's Non-profit Foundations
Tax-exempt foundations grew substantially in the twentieth century, both in their financial importance and in the scope of their activities. This challenging book examines the economic, cultural, and intellectual implications of tax-exempt organizations. How do various tax laws influence foundations and what types of ideas do foundations produce? How do the activities of foundations relate to the interests and intentions of their founders? Does t…
Public Goods Theory and Public Policy
The Unanimous Voting Rule is not the Political Equivalent to Market Exchange
James M. Buchanan and Richard A. Musgrave, Public Finance and Public Choice: Two Contrasting Visions of the State
Keith L. Dougherty, Collective Action Under the Articles of Confederation
Economics (61 works) · Political science (59 works) · Law (47 works) · Public finance (43 works) · Law (35 works) · Macroeconomics (29 works) · Politics (27 works) · Public economics (24 works) · Law and economics (20 works) · Economic Theory and Institutions (15 works)