Customer Reviews

Public Choice II: A Revised Edition of Public Choice (Cambridge Surveys of Economic Literature)

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This is a good introductory book for political economy. This may or may not be as good as the same author's "Perspectives on Public Choice" but it does cover most issue areas in the Public Choice subdiscipline in the course of its sections. I think that this was the main coursebook for my first political economy class when I was in college: definitely, if you're going to buy one book on public choice, buy the other one (hopefully buy them both!!!) Then get some Mancur Olson too.... he's a lot of fun!

I used this book quite heavily for my Masters degree in philosophy and public policy. Mueller's book is well cited in a wide variety of literature which is a testament to its importance.

He gives a basic albeit technical overview of many policy issues, and he relies heavily on mathematical contructions. Of most interest to me as a philosopher are his later chapters on justice and rights, where he discusses very intelligently the thoughts of John Rawls, Harsanyi, Nozick, Sen, etc.