Public Choice Theory had Negligible Effect on Australian Microeconomic Policy, 1970s to 2000s

Jonathan Pincus

No 2014-02, Adelaide Economics Working Papers from Adelaide University, School of Economics

Abstract: Since The Calculus of Consent (1962), Public Choice has had little influence on the course of public policy in Australia and, in particular, virtually none on the seismic shift from a policy regime antagonistic to competition, to one that gives conditional approval. Competition, of the attenuated Arrow-Debreu type, led ineluctably to efficiency, if and only if market failures and government failures were corrected. The dismantling of tariff protection illustrates how Computable General Equilibrium modelling reflected the Arrow-Debreu program. Paradoxically, Public Choice antipathy towards interest groups helped create a vast space for public regulation by (presumptively) benevolent and disinterested public servants.

Pages: 11 pages
Date: 2014-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://media.adelaide.edu.au/economics/papers/doc/wp2014-02.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Public Choice Theory had Negligible Effect on Australian Microeconomic Policy, 1970s to 2000s (2014)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:adl:wpaper:2014-02

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Adelaide Economics Working Papers from Adelaide University, School of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chansik Yoon () and Ruby Nguyen ().