'. . . 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

Public choice theory has become an increasingly significant aspect of public law scholarship. A more comprehensive knowledge of public institutions and their activities can illuminate our understanding of how legal rules shape the behavior of these institutions. This volume gathers together key papers highlighting the fundamental issues in the evolution of this subject. Besides providing an appreciation of the institutional complexity and potential weak points of democracies, public choice theory promises to show how political structures and processes shape outcomes for better or for worse. It thereby aids understanding and improvements to institutional design. Much of that design is expressed in the form of law, so the subject is of particular importance to legal scholars. This authoritative selection of articles provides a firm foundation to this important area of study.

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

"This two-volume collection provides a comprehensive overview of the past seventy years of public choice research, written by experts in the fields surveyed. The individual chapters are more than simple surveys, but provide readers with both a sense of the progress made and puzzles that remain. Most are written with upper level undergraduate and graduate students in economics and political science in mind, but many are completely accessible to non-expert readers who are interested in Public Choice research. The two-volume set will be of broad interest to social scientists, policy analysts, and historians"--

The Oxford Handbook of Public Choice provides a comprehensive overview of the research in economics, political science, law, and sociology that has generated considerable insight into the politics of democratic and authoritarian systems as well as the influence of different institutional frameworks on incentives and outcomes. The result is an improved understanding of public policy, public finance, industrial organization, and macroeconomics as the combination of political and economic analysis shed light on how various interests compete both within a given rules of the games and, at times, to change the rules. These volumes include analytical surveys, syntheses, and general overviews of the many subfields of public choice focusing on interesting, important, and at times contentious issues. Throughout the focus is on enhancing understanding how political and economic systems act and interact, and how they might be improved. Both volumes combine methodological analysis with substantive overviews of key topics. This second volume examines constitutional political economy and also various applications, including public policy, international relations, and the study of history, as well as methodological and measurement issues. Throughout both volumes important analytical concepts and tools are discussed, including their application to substantive topics. Readers will gain increased understanding of rational choice and its implications for collective action; various explanations of voting, including economic and expressive; the role of taxation and finance in government dynamics; how trust and persuasion influence political outcomes; and how revolution, coups, and authoritarianism can be explained by the same set of analytical tools as enhance understanding of the various forms of democracy.

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

In this text the author presents a middle ground between those who champion public choice theory and those who disparage it. He argues that in many cases public choice theory's reach has exceeded its grasp and that in others public choice insights have not been pursued far enough.