James Buchanan advocated the market mechanism for allocating resources because it is based on voluntary exchange. People engage in market transactions only when they believe they benefit from doing so. Buchanan depicted the political process the same way. People engage in collective activities...

Whenever the economic model of behavior is to be applied, the utility function has—at least somewhat—to be specified. Buchanan generally prefers to apply a rather narrow version. However, he acknowledges that it is hardly possible to explain actual behavior of individuals with such a...

In this paper we present an adaptation of Buchanan and Tullock’s model in order to apply it to the constitutional choices regarding the assigning of powers to a supranational authority. The outcome of the economic-political model developed in this paper demonstrates that there are constraints...

The European Union of today is neither a confederation nor a federation, but rather an association of compound states. It is shown that this mixture of two forms of constitutional contracts implies inconsistencies prone to political deadlocks. A Buchanan/Tullock/Rawls approach to a reform...

This paper uses the logical tools of Constitutional Economics to analyze the creation of the Euro, considering the entire process as the outcome of a conflict between different rules or, if you will, between different monetary systems, moving from the system of flexible exchange rates to a...