James M. Buchanan

James M. Buchanan
Buchanan in September 2010
Born	(1919-10-03)October 3, 1919 Murfreesboro, Tennessee, U.S.
Died	January 9, 2013(2013-01-09) (aged 93) Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.
Nationality	American
Institution	George Mason University Virginia Tech University of Virginia
Field	Public choice
School or tradition	Constitutional economics
Alma mater	University of Chicago University of Tennessee Middle Tennessee State University
Influences	John Stuart Mill Frank Knight Knut Wicksell Friedrich Hayek Ludwig von Mises
Influenced	Elinor Ostrom Tyler Cowen
Contributions	Public choice theory Logrolling
Awards	Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (1986)
Information at IDEAS / RePEc

James McGill Buchanan, Jr. (/bjuːˈkænᵻn/; October 3, 1919 – January 9, 2013) was an American economist known for his work on public choice theory (included in his most famous work The Calculus of Consent), for which he received the Nobel Memorial Prize in 1986. Buchanan's work initiated research on how politicians' and bureaucrats' self-interest, utility maximization and other non-wealth maximizing considerations affect their decision making. He was a member of the Board of Advisors of The Independent Institute, a member (and for a time the President) of the Mont Pelerin Society, a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Cato Institute, and professor at George Mason University.

Buchanan was born in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, the eldest child of James and Lila (Scott) Buchanan. He was a grandson of John P. Buchanan, a governor of Tennessee in the 1890s. He graduated from Middle Tennessee State Teachers College, now known as Middle Tennessee State University, in 1940. Buchanan completed his M.S. from the University of Tennessee in 1941. He spent the war years on the staff of Admiral Nimitz in Honolulu, when he met Anne Bakke, whom he married on October 5, 1945. Anne, of Norwegian descent, was working as a nurse at the military base in Hawaii (she died in 2005).