Constitutional Economics

In the Spring, I teach a PhD seminar in Constitutional Economics. This year I am organizing it as a "Liberty Fund" type manner. Each week we will have a 3 hour long discussion on a major work in the field.  In the past I have emphasized the historical record on constitutional practice (e.g., Athens, UK, US, and post-communist history), or the modern analytical work in constituitonal economics and positive political economy (e.g., Riker, Buchanan-Tullock, Weingast, Acemoglu, etc.), but this time around I am emphasizing the classical liberal aspects of the program.  In all my classes on this subject, I have exposed students to this aspect, but I haven't always treated it as exclusively as I am this time around.  But we start with the restatement of liberalism in the hands of Mises and Hayek, then Hayek's presentation of The Constitution of Liberty before getting to Buchanan's pioneering work in political economy.  Buchanan is responsible for both the rebirth of political economy as a positive exercise in economic research, and for a renewed appreciation of classical liberalism.  Buchanan's greatness as an economists is sometimes forgotten even here at GMU, and part of my teaching purpose is to make sure our PhD students learn Buchanan's argument for freedom in constitutional restraint, but also how his framework for constitutional analysis is vital aspect of any positive program for research in political economy.  We will see how this educational experiment works out.

Comments

[Jay Chambers]

My graduate course in "Public Choice" economics was more or less a tutorial on Buchanan. Taught by a student of Buchanan and Tullock when I think the two were at Virginia Tech. (At least, that's where he got his PhD.)

Great, great class.

[Bill Stepp]

I don't get the Constitution fetish held by some Austrians. After all, the Con. was imposed on the economy by 56/39 willful little men, who didn't have anyone's power of attorney and couldn't act as a legal principal for anyone. To continue channeling Spooner, they certainly didn't have the right to impose it on future generations.
And what's up with defending art. 1, section 8, which is just a grab bag of state monoplies?
For example, the so-called progress clause should be called the intellectual monopoly clause.
I don't get why Austrians would study endogenous institutions like anarchy (i.e. private provision of law), and turn around in their next breath and sign hoseannas to the Con., which is exogenous to market institutions. It's the result of lawlessness, not spontaneous order.
Its like cooking the legal books in a way Enron or Bernie Madoff could only have dreamed about.
Let's kick the Con. habit, now more than ever.

[Professor Ludwig van den Hauwe]

Thanks to Peter Boettke for communicating a survey of his course!

[Shane Cline]

The constitution was not imposed on future generations of citizens by willful little men. It was imposed on future generations of government. There's a big difference since the behavior of citizens is quite adequately regulated by punitive laws, while the behavior of government is regulated only by election. I agree that a constitution is a bit of a kludge for restricting government. I'm interested to hear if anyone has better ways to regulate the behavior of government, to keep out special interests, to avoid nationalistic tendencies, to maintain strong property rights, etc.