This is volume 17 in the "Major Conservative and Libertarian Thinkers" series. James McGill Buchanan (B. 1919) is an American economist best known for his public choice theory. The founder of a new Virginia school of political economy, he has written extensively on subjects including public finance, macroeconomics, and libertarian theory. Buchanan's theory offered a basis for conservative political endeavors such as a constitutional amendment to balance the federal budget. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1986. "Major Conservative and Libertarian Thinkers" provides comprehensive accounts of the works of seminal conservative thinkers from a variety of periods, disciplines, and traditions - the first series of its kind. Even the selection of thinkers adds another aspect to conservative thinking, including not only theorists but also writers and practitioners. The series comprises twenty volumes, each including an intellectual biography, historical context, critical exposition of the thinker's work, reception and influence, contemporary relevance, bibliography including references to electronic resources, and an index.

Author Biography

Dr Meadowcroft is Lecturer in Public Policy at King's College London and the author of The Ethics of the Market (Palgrave, 2005) and coauthor of Rescuing Social Capital from Social Democracy (Institute of Economic Affairs, 2007).