Thomas E Borcherding passed away on February 12, 2014, of congestive heart failure. He was 74. He is survived by his wife, Rhoda, and his sons Matthew and Benjamin. He made important, lasting contributions to the discipline of economics, particularly to the fields of public choice and law and...

The paper examines the scientific work of Alberto Alesina as leader of a new school of macroeconomic political economy which has renovated and broadened the content of this branch of the economic science. His political economy is not dominated by the axiomatic normative economics, where...

This paper explores the extent to which human capital improves the economic policy competence of US presidents. Several recent studies have used international data to test similar hypotheses. However, international studies suffer from a variety of comparability issues, not all of which can be...

The relationship between decentralization and economic growth is generally studied from a perspective stressing universal or quasi-universal regularities across jurisdictions. That approach has generated many insights but seems to reach its limits. The paper explains why it allows contrasting...

Contribution to a series of recollections and reflections on professional experiences of distinguished economists. Article originally published in vol. 39 n. 159 of Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Quarterly Review.

The article summarises the evolution of the Italian school of public finance, highlighting those themes that most attracted James Buchanan's interest. It considers such topics as the operations of the fiscal authorities, the Leviatan monopolist, financial delusion, public debt theory, and the...

Contribution to a series of recollections and reflections on professional experiences of distinguished economists. Article originally published in vol. 39 n. 159 of Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Quarterly Review.

We develop a public choice model of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in which credit and conditionality are simultaneously determined by the demand for, and supply of, IMF credit. A graphical analysis illustrates the comparative statics in response to various shocks. We apply the model to...