Anthony Downs was an employee for whom from 1977 to 1978?
Anthony Downs Anthony Downs ( ; born November 21 , 1930 ) is an American economist specializing in public policy and public administration . He has been a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington , D.C. , since 1977 . Before 1977 , Downs served for 18 years a member and then Chairman of Real Estate Research Corporation , a nationwide consultancy advising private and public decision-makers on real estate investment , housing policies , and urban affairs . He also served as a Senior Analyst at the RAND Corporation and a professor at the University of Chicago . Education . Downs received a B.A . in international relations and political theory from Carleton College in 1952 , and an M.A . and Ph.D . in economics from Stanford University in 1956 . In An Economic Theory of Democracy ( 1957 ) , an early work in rational choice theory , Downs posited the paradox of voting , which claimed that significant elements of political life could not be explained in terms of voter self-interest . Downs showed that in democracies the aggregate distribution of political opinion forms a bell-shaped curve , with most voters possessing moderate opinions ; he argued that this fact forces political parties in democracies to adopt centrist positions . Career . Downs has served as a consultant to many of the nations largest corporations and public institutions , including the U.S . Department of Housing and Urban Development ( HUD ) and the White House . President Lyndon B . Johnson appointed him to the National Commission on Urban Problems in 1967 , and HUD Secretary Jack Kemp appointed him to the Advisory Commission on Regulatory Barriers to Affordable Housing in 1989 . He is officer or trustee of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund . He is the author or co-author of 24 books and over 500 articles . His most influential books are An Economic Theory of Democracy ( 1957 ) and Inside Bureaucracy ( 1967 ) ; widely translated , both are credited as major influences on the public choice school of political economy . Later , Downs concerned himself with housing policy , writing about rent control and affordable housing . The Revolution in Real Estate Finance ( 1985 ) predicted a long-term housing slowdown and decrease in housing prices . Downs has involved himself with transportation economics . In 1962 , Downs published his Downs Law of Peak-Hour Traffic Congestion . This Law states that on urban commuter expressways , peak-hour traffic congestion rises to meet maximum capacity . Therefore , expanding the expressway network does not help against traffic jams . A complex set of forces lie behind this Law , which were analyzed by presentation of a model of commuter decision-making and its underlying set of assumptions . By the same token , e.g . the 1965 Highway Capacity Manual stated that the capacity of a highway or motorway increases with decreasing traffic speed , till its maximum capacity is reached at about 50 km/h ( 30 mph ) . ( Cf . Braesss paradox. ) His book Stuck in Traffic ( 1992 ) , which detailed the economic disadvantages of traffic congestion and proposed road pricing as the only effective means of alleviating it , was denounced by traffic engineers for its insistence on the futility of congestion relief measures . However , enough of his gloomy predictions about congestion were proven right that he successfully published a second edition , Still Stuck in Traffic ( 2004 ) . Downs recommendations are starting to see implementation , largely in the form of high-occupancy toll ( HOT ) lanes in the medians of crowded American freeways , and through congestion pricing , already implemented in several cities around the world : Singapore ( see Area Licensing Scheme and Electronic Road Pricing ) ; London ( see London congestion charge ) ; Stockholm ( see Stockholm congestion tax ) ; Valletta , Malta ; and Milan , Italy . He was a Visiting Fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California in San Francisco , from June 2004 until March 2005 . Thought . The left–right continuum . In his seminal work An Economic Theory of Democracy ( 1957 ) , Downs introduced a left–right axis to economic theory . On the left he placed communist parties that want entirely state-planned economies , and on the right he placed conservative parties that demand an entirely deregulated economy . He claimed that most voters have incomplete information when voting for political candidates in a democracy , and therefore will resort to economic issues of how much government intervention in the economy there should be and how parties will control this . Downs borrowed the curve from Harold Hotelling , who developed it to explain how grocery stores targeted customers . Downs book has since become one of the most cited books in political science . His left–right axis model has been integrated into the median voter theory first articulated by Duncan Black .