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In the 1950s, Buchanan proposed an approach to public debt rooted in individual calculus that challenged the prevailing Keynesian orthodoxy. In addition to the Italian tradition, Buchanan drew in important ways on the intellectual heritage of Knight, Simons, and Wicksell to advance an alternative narrative of public debt that considered both the decision-making process and the long-run implications of sustained public debt. By orientating his approach in an individualist rather than organic conception of the state, Buchanan not only provided a logical structure by which to evaluate debt decisions but also established an ethical argument against cross-generational debt based on the idea of voluntary consent.
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Cooper, M. (2024) Counterrevolution: Extravagance and Austerity in Public Finance, New York, NY: Princeton University Press.
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Desmarais-Tremblay, M. (2021) Paternalism and the public household: on the domestic origins of public economics, History of Political Economy, 53(2): 179–211. doi: 10.1215/00182702-8905977
Desmarais-Tremblay, M. and Johnson, M. (2024) Distributing the tax burden in postwar America: between empirical estimates and normative principles.
Desmarais-Tremblay, M., Johnson, M. and Sturn, R. (2023) From public finance to public economics, European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 30(5): 934–64. doi: 10.1080/09672567.2023.2248323
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Eusepi, G. (2020) From subjectivism to constitutionalism: the intellectual journey of James M. Buchanan through his Italian heroes, Public Choice, 183(3–4): 273–85. doi: 10.1007/s11127-020-00806-5
Fossati, A. (2010) The idea of the state in the Italian tradition of public finance, European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 17(4): 881–907. doi: 10.1080/09672560903552520
Grandjean, J. (2021) James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock on the weaknesses of majority voting: a triptych, OEconomia, 11(1): 49–76. doi: 10.4000/oeconomia.10780
Grandjean, J. (2023) Le Choix en Démocratie. Les Apports des Précurseurs de l’école de Virginie, Coll. Questions économiques, Paris: L’Harmattan.
Hansen, A. (1941) Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles, New York, NY: Norton.
Hansen, A. (1959) Reviewed works: is the national debt a burden? By J.E. Meade: public principles of public debt by James M. Buchanan, Review of Economics and Statistics, 41(4): 370–8. doi: 10.2307/1927264
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Irving, S. (2021) Power, plutocracy, and public finance: James M. Buchanan and the “Italian tradition”, Global Intellectual History, 6(6): 956–76. doi: 10.1080/23801883.2019.1616311
Johnson, M. (2014) James M. Buchanan, Chicago, and post war public finance, Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 36(4): 479–97. doi: 10.1017/s1053837214000571
Johnson, M. (2019) Rules versus authorities: Buchanan, Simons, and fiscal policy, in R. Wagner (ed) James M. Buchanan: A Theorist of Political Economy and Social Philosophy, New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, pp 941–64.
Keynes, J.M. (1936) The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, New York, NY: Harcourt and Brace.
Knight, F.H. (1922) Ethics and the economic interpretation, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 36: 451–81. doi: 10.2307/1886033
Knight, F.H. (1935) Economic theory and nationalism, in The Ethics of Competition and Other Essays, London: George Allen & Unwin.
Knight, F.H. (1946) Review: freedom under planning, Journal of Political Economy, 54(5): 451–4. doi: 10.1086/256402
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Knight, F.H. (1950) Economic and social policy in democratic society, Journal of Political Economy, 58(6): 513–22. doi: 10.1086/257013
Kuehn, D. (2025) The burden of Southern public finance: B.U. Ratchford, David McCord Wright, and James M. Buchanan on the new economics of public debt.
Lerner, A.P. (1959) Reviewed works: Public Principles of Public Debt: A Defense and Restatement by James M. Buchanan, Journal of Political Economy, 67(2): 203–6. doi: 10.1086/258165
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Marciano, A. (2020) How Wicksell became important for Buchanan: a historical account of a (relatively) slow epiphany, Journal of Public Finance and Public Choice, 35(2): 181–203. doi: 10.1332/251569119x15709869180845
Marciano, A. (2021) Retrospectives: James Buchanan: clubs and alternative welfare economics, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 35(3): 243–56. doi: 10.1257/jep.35.3.243
Marciano, A. (2024) James Buchanan and Peaceful Cooperation, New York, NY: Cambridge.
Marciano, A. (2025) Buchanan on taxes, loans, and the public debt: elements for a history of Ricardian equivalence, Journal of Public Finance and Public Choice [forthcoming].
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May 2022 onwards | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 3050 | 3050 | 810 |
Full Text Views | 179 | 179 | 4 |
PDF Downloads | 157 | 157 | 4 |
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