James M. Buchanan Quotations

One of the most exciting intellectual moments of my career was my 1948 discovery of Knut Wicksell's unknown and untranslated dissertation, 'Finanztheoretische Untersuchungen,' buried in the dusty stacks of Chicago's old Harper Library.

The economist rarely examines the presuppositions of the models with which he works. The economist simply commences with individuals as evaluating, choosing, and acting units. This starting point for analysis necessarily draws attention to the choice or decision environment for the individuals who must make selections from among the alternatives.

The eighteenth century discovery that, in an institutional framework that facilitates voluntary exchanges among individuals, this process generates results that might be evaluated positively, produced 'economics,' as an independent academic discipline or science.

In 1987, the United States celebrates the bicentennial anniversary of the constitutional convention that provided the basic rules for the American political order. This convention was one of the very few historical examples in which political rules were deliberately chosen.