The theory of public choice

The theory of public choice is a doctrine (discipline), within which research is carried out on the ways and means by which people use government institutions for their own interests. The object is analyzed in terms of both representative and direct democracy. In this connection, the theory of public choice mainly studies the electoral process, the management policy, the activities of deputies and so on.

The analysis begins with direct democracy, then goes on to the representative, acting as a limiting factor. The discipline also includes methods of regulating the economy. Teaching in some cases is called a new political economy due to the fact that it explores the political mechanism for the formation of macroeconomic solutions.

The theory of public choice criticizes Keynesians, casts doubt on the effectiveness, expediency of state intervention in the country's economic system. Representatives of the exercise as the object of analysis chose not the impact of financial and monetary methods, but directly the procedure for decision-making by the government.

Formed to the fifties and sixties of the 20th century, the theory of public choice became an important component of neoinstitutional learning. Immediate impetus to the development of discipline was the debate in the thirties and forties. At that time there were problems of welfare economics and market socialism. In the sixties, Arrow's work on social choice and individual values caused a rather wide resonance. In this work, the concepts of state and personality were correlated. Contrary to this idea, Tallock and Buchanan spoke. They carried out an analogy between the market and the state. At the same time, relations between citizens and the government were considered in accordance with the principle of "service for service". It was on these ideas that the theory of public choice was subsequently based.

The first to apply the marginal analysis in the study of the budget process, the modeling of supply and demand in the market of public wealth were representatives of the Italian school of government financiers. These figures were the following personalities: Mazzola, Pantaleoni, Viti de Marco. The ideas formulated by them at the end of the 19th century were further developed in the works of representatives of the Swedish economic school. Thus, Lindahl and Wicksell paid attention mainly to political processes that ensured the determination of the guidelines of budget policy in the state.

It should be noted that the developed approaches and ideas have not been applied in practice for a long time. By the 1940s-'50s, theories about the rational nature of the activities and behavior of individuals in the sphere of politics began to actively penetrate scientific discussions. This is largely possible thanks to the publication of works Arrow, Downs, Schumpeter, Black.

As a result, the development of ideas led to the formation of a set of provisions, which is actually a theory of public choice. A key role in the development of the exercise belonged to the representatives of the Virginia School of Economics.

Within the limits of limited resources, one has to choose one of the alternatives provided. At the same time, analytical methods of studying the behavior of an individual in a market are considered universal. In this regard, they can be applied to every area where a person needs to make a choice.

As the main prerequisite for the formation of the doctrine is the fact that the activities of people in the political sphere are connected with defending their own interests. Thus, there is no clear boundary between politics and business.