Abstract
In the traditional, pre-public choice approach to public policy, the creation of policy was seen as exogenous to the economic process. Within this exogenous perspective, there was no scope for a theory of economic policy or political choice as such. The analytical task was not to explain the central characteristics of the policy choices that emerge from a political process, but rather was to advise the policy maker on the characteristics of desirable policy measures. To this day, the central core of what is called welfare economics has consisted of specifying the characteristics of “good” policy measures. The creator of public policy stands outside the economic process, and the task for the economic analyst is to suggest ways for the policy maker to improve the operation of the economic process. Presumably, the more benevolent or public spirited the policy maker, the more fully the policy measures actually enacted will advance the economic welfare of the nation.
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Notes
This includes about $5.28 billion from accidents resulting in deaths, and another $4.195 billion from accidents resulting in injury but not death.
The strong association between obesity and TV watching (Tucker and Friedman, 19889) could well be used to argue for taxes on TVs, a restriction in the number of hours during which signals can be broadcast, and possibly even the abolition of TV and the restoration of a TV-free America.
This number includes attendance at major league baseball games, college basketball games (both men’s and women’s), professional basketball games, college and professional football games (including NFL and USFL), National Hockey League games, horse races, greyhound races, and jai alai. Not included, because of lack of data, were soccer, high school and elementary school sporting events (as well as youth sports activities like Little League), minor league baseball games, and the many other spectator sports which each attract relatively small numbers of the public annually. Therefore, this is a very conservative, lower bound estimate of attendance at sporting events. We assumed that the average length of attendance at each sporting event listed was three hours. See U.S. Bureau of the Census (1988, p. 218).
Calculated from data presented in National Sporting Goods Association (1987).
Average hourly wages in the United States in 1986 were $8.76. See U.S. Bureau of the Census (1988, p.288).
The discussion in this section draw upon Buchanan (1986).
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© 1992 Springer Science+Business Media New York
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Tollison, R.D., Wagner, R.E. (1992). Principle And Expediency In Public Policy. In: The Economics of Smoking. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3892-5_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3892-5_12
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