James M. Buchanan

**James McGill Buchanan, Jr.** (October 3, 1919 – January 9, 2013) was an American economist and educator. He is known for his public choice theory. His theories helped scientists figure out political science. Buchanan won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1968 for his theory.

## Early life

Buchanan was born on October 3, 1919 in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. His ancestry includes Scottish and Irish. He was raised in Chicago, Illinois and in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Buchanan studied at University of Chicago, at the University of Tennessee, and at the State Teachers College, Murfreesboro.

## Ideas

Buchanan is the founder of a new Virginia school of political economy. Buchanan is largely responsible for the rebirth of political economy in the second half of 20th century.
The term "constitutional economics" was used by James M. Buchanan as a name for a new academic sub-discipline. Buchanan’s work in 1986 brought him the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his "development of the contractual and constitutional bases for the theory of economic and political decision-making."
Buchanan rejects "any organic conception of the state" as superior in wisdom, to the citizens of this state." This philosophical position forms the basis of constitutional economics. Buchanan believes that every constitution is created for at least several generations of citizens. It must be able to balance interests of the state, society, and each individual.

In 2001 Buchanan received an honorary doctoral degree from Universidad Francisco Marroquín, in Guatemala City, Guatemala, for his contribution to economics.
The _New York Times_ commented that the Nobel Prize-winning economist who championed public choice theory influenced a "generation of conservative thinking about deficits, taxes, and the size of government".

## Personal life and death

He was married to Ann Bakke from 1945 until his death in 2013. They had no children. Buchanan died on January 9, 2013, in Blacksburg, Virginia. He was 93 and he died from natural causes.

## Related pages

- Constitutional economics
- Economics
- Political economy
- Nobel Prize in Economics

## Other websites

- Biography at GMU
- YouTube Reflections on the Life and Work of James Buchanan
- Biography of James M. Buchanan at the _Concise Encyclopedia of Economics_
- 'The Hobbes Problem: From Machiavelli to Buchanan' by Deirdre McCloskey.

## Infobox (economist)

- **name**: James M. Buchanan
- **image**: James Buchanan by Atlas network.jpg
- **caption**: Buchanan in September 2010
- **birth place**: Murfreesboro, Tennessee, U.S.
- **death place**: Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.
- **nationality**: United States, US
- **institution**: George Mason University
Virginia Tech
University of Virginia
- **field**: Public choice
Austrian school
- **school tradition**: Constitutional economics
- **alma mater**: University of Chicago
University of Tennessee
Middle Tennessee State University
- **influences**: John Stuart Mill
Frank Knight
Knut Wicksell
Friedrich Hayek
Ludwig von Mises
- **influenced**: Elinor Ostrom
Tyler Cowen
- **contributions**: Public choice theory
Logrolling
- **awards**: Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (1986)
- **repec prefix**: e
- **repec id**: pbu16