Public choice theory has originally been motivated by the need to correct the asymmetry, widespread in traditional welfare economics, between the motivational assumptions of market participants and policymakers: Those who played the game of politics should also be considered rational and...

The Weimar Republic is analysed within the framework of limited and open access orders. Germany had developed into a mature limited access order before World War I, with rule of law and open economic access but only limited access to politics. After the war, Germany developed toward an open...

The distinct characteristic in James Buchanan’s thinking about federalism in contrast to the traditional theory of fiscal federalism is his view about fiscal competition. In this paper, it is demonstrated that this thinking went through three stages. From the 1950s to the beginning of the...

In den letzten Jahren hat sich ein breiter Literaturstrang etabliert, der neue Formen paternalistischer Interventionen vorschlägt, um individuelle Entscheidungen zu verbessern, die nicht vollständig rational sind. Die Motivation hierfür liegt in zahlreichen Verhaltensanomalien und anderen...

This paper argues that an evolutionary approach to policy-making, which emphasizes openness to change and political variety, is particularly compatible with the central tenets of classical liberalism. The chief reasons are that classical liberalism acknowledges the ubiquity of uncertainty, as...

[Einleitung: Das Spannungsverhältnis zwischen Liberalismus und Demokratie] Zwischen den Idealen der Demokratie und des Liberalismus besteht, so scheinen nicht wenige ihrer jeweiligen Advokaten zu vermuten, ein inhärentes Spannungsverhältnis. Auf der liberalen Seite spricht ein Autor wie...

The Weimar Republic is analysed within the framework of limited and open access orders. Germany had developed into a mature limited access order before World War I, with rule of law and open economic access but only limited access to politics. After the war, Germany developed toward an open...

We argue that perceived fairness of the income generation process affects the association between income inequality and subjective well-being, and that there are systematic differences in this regard between countries that are characterized by a high or, respectively, low level of actual...