Part of: The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan in 20 vols. The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan, Vol. 5. The Demand and Supply of Public Goods

One of the most remarkable of Buchanan’s characteristics was his ability to rethink a question unencumbered by what he had written on the topic before. Levy and Peart recounts Buchanan’s multi-year rethinking of the question of the stability of the market economy.

Buchanan critically examines public expenditure theory to make the case that the costs of a productive state outweigh those of market failure, a point that Cassidy vehemently disagrees with. How Markets Fail outlines Cassidy’s belief that unregulated markets produce catastrophic costs.

Cohen and Mikaelian assert that many essential goods and services that were and can be provided equitably by the public have been inefficiently privatized by monopolies, making the case not only for the success of a productive state, but the necessity of one.

A brief intellectual biography of Buchanan and his work created by the Fraser Institute.

Buchanan received the Nobel Prize in 1986 for his work creating and developing public choice–the field which applies the tools of economics to politicians and political behavior. After discussing the importance of public choice, Boudreaux and Roberts focus on two contrarian articles of Buchanan’s…

Murphy compares the output provided by the private sector and the government to advocate for privately produced roads by applying Buchanan’s reasoning found in The Demand and Supply of Public Goods.

Geoffrey Brennan assesses the work of the Nobel Prize winning economist James Buchanan with responses and comments by Viktor J. Vanberg, Peter Boettke, Steven Horwitz, Loren Lomasky, and Edward Stringham.

Cowen covers many cases of public goods, such as education and lighthouses, which were supposedly due to market failure, and examines how the market can solve its own failures.