Gordon L. Brady

The Concept of Cost in Economics

We will examine first a concept of cost which has some claim to orthodoxy, and after that consider the concept of real cost which was held by Jevons and Marshall. According to the orthodox view, the cost of any choice is the most favorable alternative which the individual gives up in making the choice: it is the opportunity just displaced and may be referred to either as the opportunity cost or the displacement cost.1

INTERNATIONAL GOVERNANCE OF THE INTERNET: AN ECONOMIC ANALYSIS

ICANN currently determines which top level domains are available on the A-root server and so restricts the choices facing Internet users. Thus ICANN redistributes wealth and has become the focus of rent-seeking activities. Yet, despite my belief that the Internet will become substantially more regulated in the future, I am convinced that technology will trump the best efforts of regulators to “promote the public interest”.

The Liberalization of the Telecommunications Sector: A Rent-Seeking Perspective

This paper assesses market liberalization in the telecommunications industry from a rent-seeking perspective. Our focus is on United States regulation, with corollary international developments that are spurring competition. The analysis which is general in approach, assesses pervasive government controls which have long shaped the nature of competition in the telecommunication sectors. We find that government has been a means for retarding competition and innovation in the telecommunications sector through the actions of rent-seeking agents. Rapid technological change, however, increasingly is rendering traditional government regulation obsolete. This change is spurring welfare-enhancing competition, regulatory reform, and privatization in the telecommunications sector.

Some Notes on the Development and Structure of the Theory of Committees

This article will be partly historical and will consider the version of the theory of committees put forward by Professor Kenneth J. Arrow, in relation to a theory which had been given a little earlier by the present writer. Arrow’s views can be found in his well-known article of 19503 and in Social Choice and Individual Values (1st ed. 1951, 2nd ed. 1963) and those of the present writer in a series of articles 1948 to 1949.4 This theory, already existing at the time when Arrow wrote, will be referred to 41 as “the existing theory.” The comparison we make gives the opportunity to restate and clarify some of the central positions of the normative theory of committees. In some ways the paper will be in the nature of a revision article and will confine itself to the essentials on which the theory hinges.

Climate Politics, Strategic Behaviour, Hold‐Outs, Free Riders and Rent‐Seekers

This paper examines recent developments in US climate change policy from a public choice perspective. Policies such as ‘cap and trade’ threaten to impose substantial costs on individuals and businesses, yet their effectiveness at reducing greenhouse gas emissions is questionable. Support for legislation that restricts emissions can partly be explained by the strategic behaviour of various special interests.

RENT-SEEKING: VALUING TULLOCK'S REJECTS

This paper demonstrates that Gordon Tullocks articles on rent seeking continue to be cited, often far more frequently than the papers which journals chose to publish when they rejected Tullocks submissions.

Gordon Tullock: His Development as an Unconventional Economist, 1947–1962

This essay examines Gordon Tullock’s early career and his intellectual interaction with a number of well-known scholars.1 It describes the period from his graduation at the University of Chicago Law School (1947), through his time with the U.S. Department of State (1947–1956) and his early years in academia (1958–1962), to the publication of The Calculus of Consent (1962). It includes examination of his relations with Colin Campbell, Warren Nutter, Richard “Dixie” Walker, Karl Popper, Anthony Downs, Duncan Black, and James Buchanan during these years.

Wicksell’s Use of the Theory of Committees in Public Finance

Wicksell’s work in Public Finance exhibits his characteristic boldness of construction and its general line of approach seems one which must be taken into account before any satisfactory treatment of the problem (theory of the committee) can be arrived at.1 Yet, in spite of the interest of the questions it raises and the prominence accorded during the last two decades to his other theories, his work in Public Finance, because of the difficulty of the German in which it is written, has remained almost a closed book to the English-speaking countries.2

That the Same Mathematical Model Applies in Epistemology

We seek to show that the mathematical model which applies in regard to the committee and the choice-making of the individual and the individual’s reckoning of probability, has some implication also in the theory of knowledge. The same mathematical model might provide a frame of reference, setting out the common element in the various theories of knowledge, the mode of reasoning which they share.

The Geometrical Theory of a Special Majority

There is nothing I wish to add to the arithmetical treatment of a committee using a special majority, given in Chapter XII of my Theory of Committees and Elections (1958). The geometrical theory of a special majority is difficult, because of a certain asymmetry which exists, by contrast with the symmetrical relationships, for the case in which a simple majority is in use. The following pages seek to improve on the geometrical treatment given in the work. My aim has been to convey the broad nature of the way in which a special majority works, providing proofs for the main cases that arise, and indicating the other cases for which proofs could be constructed, but are not given in this paper.