Daniel B. Klein

Professors and their politics: The policy views of social scientists

Abstract Academic social scientists overwhelmingly vote Democratic, and the Democratic hegemony has increased significantly since 1970. Moreover, the policy preferences of a large sample of the members of the scholarly associations in anthropology, economics, history, legal and political philosophy, political science, and sociology generally bear out conjectures about the correspondence of partisan identification with left/right ideal types; although across the board, both Democratic and Republican academics favor government action more than the ideal types might suggest. Variations in policy views among Democrats is smaller than among Republicans. Ideological diversity (as judged not only by voting behavior, but by policy views) is by far the greatest within economics. Social scientists who deviate from left‐wing views are as likely to be libertarian as conservative.

HIGH OCCUPANCY/TOLL LANES: PHASING IN CONGESTION PRICING A LANE AT A TIME

A consensus is emerging among transportation economists that the best way to deal with freeway congestion is to charge for driving during peak hours. The main barrier to implementation is political: drastic change is politically unpopular. This paper proposes a way of overcoming the political obstacles by phasing in congestion pricing over a period of many years.

Convention, Social Order, and the Two Coordinations

The word “coordination” has two meanings, and thesemeanings are often conflated. One meaning, associated with ThomasSchelling, is seen in situations like choosing whether to driveon the left or the right; the drivers must coordinate to eachothers behavior. The other meaning, associated with FriedrichHayek, means that a concatenation of activities is arranged soas to produce good results. Along with the Schelling sense ofcoordination comes the notion of convention, such as drivingon the right. Some conventions are consciously designed; othersemerge without design (or are “emergent”). Along with the Hayeksense of coordination comes the notion of social order. Somesocial orders, such as the skeleton of activities within thefirm or within the hypothetical socialist economy, are consciouslyplanned. Other social orders, such as the catallaxy of the freesociety, function without central planning (or are “spontaneous”).Distinguishing between the two coordinations (and, in parallelfashion, between convention and social order) clarifies thinkingand resolves some confusions that have arisen in discussionsof “coordination” and “spontaneous order.” The key distinctionsare discussed in the context of the thought of, on the one hand,Menger, Schelling, David Lewis, and the recent path-dependencetheorists, and, on the other hand, Smith, Hayek, Polanyi, Coase,and the modern Austrian economists. The paper concludes witha typology that encompasses the several distinctions.

Faculty partisan affiliations in all disciplines: A voter‐registration study

Abstract The party registration of tenure‐track faculty at 11 California universities, ranging from small, private, religiously affiliated institutions to large, public, elite schools, shows that the “one‐party campus” conjecture does not extend to all institutions or all departments. At one end of the scale, U.C. Berkeley has an adjusted Democrat:Republican ratio of almost 9:1, while Pepperdine University has a ratio of nearly 1:1. Academic field also makes a tremendous difference, with the humanities averaging a 10:1 D:R ratio and business schools averaging 1.3:1, and with departments ranging from sociology (44:1) to management (1.5:1). Across all departments and institutions, the D:R ratio is 5:1, while in the “soft” liberal‐arts fields, the ratio is higher than 8:1. These findings are generally in line with comparable previous studies.

Experiment on entrepreneurial discovery: an attempt to demonstrate the conjecture of Hayek and Kirzner

Friedrich Hayek conjectured that the free enterprise system is most effective in making discoveries. Israel Kirzner refines the conjecture as follows: the availability of profit opportunities tends to evoke entrepreneurial discovery. We hoped to demonstrate the conjecture in an outdoor experiment. We asked subjects to transfer water from one bucket to another. There were two methods of doing so, an obvious method and a nonobvious and much superior method. We varied the payment schedules to see if higher potential rewards would more readily evoke discovery of the superior method. The hoped-for demonstration was not achieved. The investigation holds several lessons for those who would attempt to demonstrate the entrepreneurship conjecture. Investigators must make the opportunity discoverable but not obvious, operationalize motivation (not merely vary monetary rewards), and separate entrepreneurial discovery from other types of discovery (such as that had by deliberate problem solving).

If Government Is So Villainous, How Come Government Officials Don't Seem Like Villains?

At lunch one day a colleague and I had a freindly argument over occupational licensing. I attacked it for being anticompetitive, arguing that licensing boards raise occupational incomes by restricting entry, advertising, and commercialization. My colleague, while acknowledging anticompetitive aspects, affirmed the need for licensing on the grounds of protecting the consumer from frauds and quacks. In many areas of infrequent and specialized dealing, consumers are not able, ex ante or even ex post, to evaluate competence. I countered by suggesting voluntary means by which riputational problems might be handled, and by returning to the offensive. I said that in fact the impetus for licensing usually comes from the practitioners, not their customers, and that licensing boards seldom devote their time to ferreting out incompetence but rather simply to prosecuting unlicensed practitioners. I mentioned cross-sectional findings, such as those on state licensure, prices, and occupational incomes. Overall, I characterized the professional establishment as a group of villains, who set the standards, write codes, and enforce behavior to enhance their own material well-being. The terms economists often use for political operators who seek government-granted resources or privilages is rent-seekers. The term is advanced especially by Public Choice economists and connotes villainy.

Israel Kirzner on Coordination and Discovery

Israel Kirzner has been one of the leaders in fashioning an Austrian school of economics. In his rendering of the Austrian school, one finds a marriage between Friedrich Hayek’s discourse with Ludwig von Mises’s deductive, praxeological image of science — a marriage that seems to us somewhat forced. The Misesian image of science stakes its claims to scientific status on purported axioms and categorical, 100-percent deductive truths, as well as the supposed avoidance of any looseness in evaluative judgments. In keeping with the praxeological style of discourse, Kirzner claims that his notion of coordination can be used as a clear-cut criterion of economic goodness. Kirzner wishes to claim that gainful entrepreneurial action in the market is always coordinative. We contend that Kirzner’s efforts to be categorical and to avoid looseness are unsuccessful. We argue that looseness inheres in the economic discussion of the most important things, and associate that viewpoint with Adam Smith. We suggest that Hayek is much closer to Smith than to Mises, and that Kirzner’s invocations of Hayek’s discussions of coordination are spurious. In denying looseness and trying to cope with the brittleness of categorical claims, Kirzner becomes abstruse. His discourse erupts with problems. Kirzner has erred in rejecting the understanding of coordination held by Hayek, Ronald Coase, and their contemporaries in the field at large. Kirzner’s refraining from the looser Smithian perspective stems from his devotion to Misesianism. Beyond all the criticism, however, we affirm the basic thrust of what Kirzner says about economic processes. Once we give up the claim that voluntary profitable activity is always or necessarily coordinative, and once we make peace with the aesthetic aspect of the idea of concatenate coordination, the basic claims of Kirzner can be salvaged: Voluntary profitable activity is usually coordinative, and government intervention is usually discoordinative. But the Misesian image of science must be dropped.

The People's Romance: Why People Love Government (As Much as They Do)

Using Schelling’s analysis of mutual coordination and focal points, I interpret Smithian sympathy as sentiment coordination. When the yearning for sentiment coordination seeks, further, for it to encompass the whole social group and looks naturally to government for the focal points, we have The People’s Romance. This yearning for encompassing sentiment coordination asserts itself by denying individual self-ownership. Government activism and coercion become romantic ends in themselves. The People’s Romance is evident in the writings of communists, social democrats, and others who champion the achieving of a “common understanding,” “common endeavor,” or “shared experience.” The People’s Romance helps to explain a wide variety of political and cultural puzzles. I explore whether The People’s Romance can be compatible with classical liberal goals and values, and conclude in the negative.

The Microfoundations of Rules vs. Discretion

Using anN-person model, I explore the microfoundations of benevolent rules-dominant situations (of which the familiar time inconsistency models are examples). I show that under discretion the citizens confront a prisoners dilemma, and I discuss the similar dilemmas embedded in the time inconsistency models. I then suggest new solutions to benevolent rules dominance: suboptimality can be avoided by accepting the discretionary regime and applying to the citizen population the standard remedies to the prisoners dilemma.

Responding to Relative Decline: The Plank Road Boom of Antebellum New York

From 1847 to 1853 New Yorkers built more than 3,500 miles of wooden roads. Financed primarily by residents of declining rural townships, plank roads were seen as a means of linking isolated areas to the canal and railroad network. A broad range of individuals invested in the roads, suggesting that the drive for bigger markets was supported by a large cross section of the population. Considerable community spirit animated the movement, indicating that New Yorkers used the social capital of the community to reach their entrepreneurial aspirations.