A tribute to Earl A. Thompson and, in his own words, a summary of his general economic and social theory

Don Allison () and Thomas Borcherding

Public Choice, 2013, vol. 156, issue 1, 7-29

Abstract: Brilliant but little known, in part because his style was dense and crucial papers unpublished, Earl Thompson reformulated standard theory to achieve policy relevance, focusing on significant rent-seeking inefficiencies stemming from private information and transaction costs. Drawing on history, he showed a vast array of institutions to be efficient which economists had previously found to be inefficient, modeled governments and their nature, defined government’s functions, and showed why dominant states rise and fall. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013

Keywords: Earl Thompson; Orthodox value theory; Standard competitive model; Walras–Arrow–Debreu general equilibrium; Policy irrelevance of economics; Private information; Imperfect information; Incomplete information; Transaction costs; Rent seeking; Efficiency; Optimality; Static versus evolutionarily dynamic modeling; Money; Keynesian economics; Capital theory; Inflation; Game theory; Hierarchical social structures; Governments; Property rights; Law; Morals and ethics; Narrow versus Broad economic rationality; Nature of the state; Vital institutions; Defense externalities; Time inconsistencies of decisions; Income and wealth taxation; Social security; Government involvement in health care; Child labor laws; Public education; Charities; Non-profit organizations; History; Guilds; Mercantilism; Gold standard; Democracy; Underdevelopment traps; Ideology; Rise and fall of dominant nation-states (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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DOI: 10.1007/s11127-013-0088-4

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