Gordon Tullock (; February 13, 1922 – November 3, 2014) was an
economist
An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social science discipline of economics.
The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this field there are ...
and professor of law and Economics at the
George Mason University School of Law. He is best known for his work on
public choice theory, the application of economic thinking to political issues. He was one of the founding figures in his field.
Early life and education
A native of
Rockford, Illinois
Rockford is a city in Winnebago County, Illinois, located in the far northern part of the state. Situated on the banks of the Rock River, Rockford is the county seat of Winnebago County (a small portion of the city is located in Ogle County). ...
and graduate of
Rockford Central High School
Rockford High School (sometimes referred to as Rockford Central High School) was the first school opened by the newly formed, citywide, school district, Rockford Public School District 205 in Rockford, Illinois. Opened in 1885, it served as a hi ...
, Tullock attended the
University of Chicago and, after a break for military service during
World War II, received a
J.D. in 1947. Following a brief period in private practice, he joined the
Foreign Service
Diplomatic service is the body of diplomats and foreign policy officers maintained by the government of a country to communicate with the governments of other countries. Diplomatic personnel obtains diplomatic immunity when they are accredited to o ...
that fall. After completing training, he was posted to
Tianjin,
China, later receiving
Chinese language
Chinese (, especially when referring to written Chinese) is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in Greater China. About 1.3 billion people (or approximately 16% of the wor ...
instruction at
Yale
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the worl ...
and
Cornell
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...
and follow-on postings to
Hong Kong and
Korea. He resigned from the Foreign Service in 1956. While he originally intended to pursue a career as a foreign trader in the Far East, his work on ''The Politics of Bureaucracy'' eventually led him to begin collaboration with
James M. Buchanan at the
University of Virginia while Tullock worked at the
University of South Carolina teaching international studies.
Academic career
Tullock's collaboration with Buchanan produced ''
The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy'' (1962), which quickly became a seminal work in the new field of public choice. He later joined Buchanan as a faculty colleague at Virginia. Despite Tullock never having taken any economics courses, for four years Buchanan and Tullock ran an economics research program. They founded a new journal for their field (1966), first called ''Papers in Non-Market Economics'' and eventually titled ''
Public Choice'', where they invited articles applying economic theory to all sorts of non-market phenomena, especially in the realm of government and politics. Despite the success of the book and the journal, disagreements with the UVA administration eventually led Tullock to leave.
In 1967, Tullock identified many of the concepts of what came to be known as
rent-seeking in a seminal paper.
Tullock moved to
Virginia Polytechnical Institute (VPI, now called Virginia Tech) in 1968 and was joined by Buchanan a year later. There they continued the Public Choice Society and the journal, of which Tullock remained editor until 1990. At VPI, Tullock wrote a number of influential articles and books, including ''Private Wants, Public Means'' (1970), ''The Logic of the Law'' (1971), ''The Social Dilemma'' (1974), and ''The Vote Motive'' (1976).
In 1983, Tullock and the Center for Study of Public Choice moved to
George Mason University, at the time a relatively unknown school in
Fairfax, Virginia. Tullock taught at GMU from 1983–1987 and at the
University of Arizona from 1987–1999. He continued to publish widely (more than 150 papers and 23 books in all), including "The Economics of Wealth and Poverty" (1986), ''
Autocracy'' (1987), ''Rent Seeking'' (1993), ''The Economics of Non-Human Societies'' (1994) and ''On Voting: A Public Choice Approach'' (1998). In 1999 he returned to George Mason as a professor of law and economics, where he retired in 2008.
Rent seeking
Tullock developed a theory referred to as
rent-seeking. Rent seeking, according to public choice theory, is securing profits through the political process rather than the market process of exchange. An example of rent seeking is when a firm, union, or special-interest group lobbies political actors (e.g. politicians or bureaucrats) to influence legislation in a beneficial manner. This can lead to
moral hazard
In economics, a moral hazard is a situation where an economic actor has an incentive to increase its exposure to risk because it does not bear the full costs of that risk. For example, when a corporation is insured, it may take on higher ri ...
when politicians make policy decisions based on the lobby instead of the efficiency of the policy.
Tullock also formulated and considered the
Tullock paradox, namely, the paradox of why rent-seeking is so cheap.
Tullock's spike
The name "Tullock's spike" refers to a
thought experiment in which Tullock suggested that if governments were serious about reducing road casualties, they should mandate that a sharp spike be installed in the center of each car's steering wheel, to increase the probability that an accident would be fatal to the driver. Tullock's idea was that the normal process of
risk compensation
Risk compensation is a theory which suggests that people typically adjust their behavior in response to perceived levels of risk, becoming more careful where they sense greater risk and less careful if they feel more protected. Although usually ...
would then lead to safer driving by the affected drivers, thereby actually reducing driving fatalities.
Awards and recognition
In 1994 Tullock was awarded an
honorary Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and in 1998 became a distinguished fellow of the
American Economic Association
The American Economic Association (AEA) is a learned society in the field of economics. It publishes several peer-reviewed journals acknowledged in business and academia. There are some 23,000 members.
History and Constitution
The AEA was est ...
. He served as President of the Southern Economic Association, the International Atlantic Economic Society (1998–1999), the Western Economic Association and the Public Choice Society. In 1996 he was elected to the ''American Political Science Review'' Hall of Fame. He was sometimes considered a longshot candidate for the
Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.
Criticism
His book, ''The Politics of Bureaucracy'', has been criticized for overlooking a substantial body of literature. A number of authors have criticized Tullock and the public choice tradition as being too simplistic in its explanation of political behavior.
Death
On November 3, 2014, Tullock died at the age of 92 in
Des Moines.
References
Further reading
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External links
Faculty Biography from George Mason UniversityTullock's bioat the
Mercatus Center
The Mercatus Center is an American libertarian, free-market-oriented non-profit think tank. Located at George Mason University and directed by the American economist Tyler Cowen, the Mercatus Center works with policy experts, lobbyists, and gove ...
*
Profile of Tullock in National Review
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Tullock, Gordon
1922 births
2014 deaths
People from Rockford, Illinois
Economists from Illinois
University of Chicago alumni
George Mason University School of Law faculty
Public choice theory
Distinguished Fellows of the American Economic Association
20th-century American economists
21st-century American economists
University of South Carolina faculty
Virginia Tech faculty
University of Arizona faculty
American military personnel of World War II
American expatriates in China
American expatriates in South Korea
Member of the Mont Pelerin Society