Ethics and Economic Progress

by James M. Buchanan

The Nobel Prize winning economist talks about the economic value of the work ethic and the saving ethic, and the economic origin of ethical constraints in three lectures presented in 1991 at the U. of Oklahoma. Also included are two lectures delivered at other locales on the economics and the ethics of idleness and on Adam Smith's distinction between productive and nonproductive work. The sixth inclusion is "Externality in Tax Response," previously published in 1966 in the Southern Economic Journal. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

Genres: Economics

168 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 1994

About the author

American economist known for his work on public choice theory, for which in 1986 he received the Nobel Memorial Prize. Buchanan's work initiated research on how politicians' self-interest and non-economic forces affect government economic policy. He was a Member of the Board of Advisors of The Independent Institute, a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Cato Institute, and professor at George Mason University.
Buchanan was the founder of a new Virginia school of political economy. He taught at the University of Virginia—where he founded the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression—UCLA, Florida State University, the University of Tennessee, and the Virginia Polytechnic Institute, where he founded the Center for the Study of Public Choice (CSPC). In 1983 a conflict with Economics Department head Daniel M. Orr came to a head and Buchanan took the CSPC to its new home at George Mason University. In 1988 Buchanan returned to Hawaii for the first time since the War and gave a series of lectures later published by the University Press. In 2001 Buchanan received an honorary doctoral degree from Universidad Francisco Marroquín, in Guatemala City, Guatemala, for his contribution to economics.