'. . . this volume offers valuable insights into theories of public choice and their application to public law. . . one of the benefits that the Handbook offers environmental lawyers is the opportunity to engage in an interdisciplinary scholarly exchange: to challenge and confirm claims about environmental law and environmental regulatory processes as set out in public choice theory.' - Sanja Bogojevi?, Climate Law

In Law and Public Choice, Daniel Farber and Philip Frickey present a remarkably rich and accessible introduction to the driving principles of public choice. In this, the first systematic look at the implications of social choice for legal doctrine, Farber and Frickey carefully review both the empirical and theoretical literature about interest group influence and provide a nonmathematical introduction to formal models of legislative action. Ideal for course use, this volume offers a balanced and perceptive analysis and critique of an approach which, within limits, can illuminate the dynamics of government decision-making. “Law and Public Choice is a most valuable contribution to the burgeoning literature. It should be of great interest to lawyers, political scientists, and all others interested in issues at the intersection of government and law.”—Cass R. Sunstein, University of Chicago Law School

A critical synthesis of social theory about government, bureaucracy, and law

Public choice theory should be taken seriously--but not too seriously. In this thought-provoking book, Jerry Mashaw stakes out a middle ground between those who champion public choice theory (the application of the conventional methodology of economics to political science matters, also known as rational choice theory) and those who disparage it. He argues that in many cases public choice theory's reach has exceeded its grasp. In others, public choice insights have not been pursued far enough by those who are concerned with the operation and improvement of legal institutions. While Mashaw addresses perennial questions of constitutional law, legislative interpretation, administrative law, and the design of public institutions, he arrives at innovative conclusions. Countering the positions of key public choice theorists, Mashaw finds public choice approaches virtually useless as an aid to the interpretation of statutes, and he finds public choice arguments against delegating political decisions to administrators incoherent. But, using the tools of public choice analysts, he reverses the lawyers' conventional wisdom by arguing that substantive rationality review is not only legitimate but a lesser invasion of legislative prerogatives than much judicial interpretation of statutes. And, criticizing three decades of "law reform," Mashaw contends that pre-enforcement judicial review of agency rules has seriously undermined both governmental capacity and the rule of law.

Public choice is the study of behavior at the intersection of economics and political science. Since the pioneering work of Duncan Black in the 1940s, public choice has developed a rich literature, drawing from such related perspectives as history, philosophy, law, and sociology, to analyze political decision making (by citizen-voters, elected officials, bureaucratic administrators, lobbyists, and other "rational" actors) in social and economic context, with an emphasis on identifying differences between individual goals and collective outcomes. Constitutional political economy provides important insights into the relationship between effective constitutions and the behavior of ordinary political markets. In Readings in Public Choice and Constitutional Political Economy, Charles Rowley and Friedrich Schneider have assembled an international array of leading authors to present a comprehensive and accessible overview of the field and its applications. Covering a wide array of topics, including regulation and antitrust, taxation, trade liberalization, political corruption, interest group behavior, dictatorship, and environmental issues, and featuring biographies of the founding fathers of the field, this volume will be essential reading for scholars and students, policymakers, economists, sociologists, and non-specialist readers interested in the dynamics of political economy.

Stearns and Zywicki's Public Choice Concepts and Applications in Law is the only course book specifically designed to instruct law students in the discipline of public choice. The book provides a comprehensive but nontechnical overview of interest group theory, social choice theory, game theory, and elementary price theory. It ties these concepts to a wide range of topics in both public and private law. The book contains chapters devoted to each set of methodological tools and specific institutional settings: legislatures, courts, executive branch and bureaus, and constitutions.