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James Buchanan endorses a radical version of subjectivism at several points in his body of work. I distinguish two distinct criteria for subjectivism in Buchanan. First, Buchanan rejects the realism of preferences, arguing that they are only an analytical tool for understanding choice. Second, Buchanan adopts an Austrian perspective on the importance of creativity inspired by Kirzner and Shackle. In addition to reconstructing Buchanan’s views on these topics, I examine how they relate to more recent work in political philosophy, behavioral economics, and psychology in order to ascertain what value Buchanan’s radical approach might still hold.

The integration of trees into agricultural landscapes has a strong influence on plant-soil interactions, with major impacts on rates of nutrient cycling across multiple spatial scales. Shifts in abiotic conditions owing to agroforestry practices, such as changes in soil nutrient and microclimatic conditions, are commonly identified as primary mechanisms for these changes. Yet agroforestry systems are also likely to influence litter decomposition rates through their influence on morphological and chemical traits of crop leaves and residues. However, explicit evaluations of how agroforestry management results in intraspecific leaf trait plasticity, and how this variation then links with litter decomposition, remain sparse. Using a 30-year-old agroforestry system intercropped with short-rotation willow (Salix dasyclados), we i) examined the effects of agroforestry management (i.e. N2-fixing trees vs. non N2-fixing trees vs. monoculture) and distance from tree row on key crop (willow) leaf morphological (i.e. leaf area, specific-leaf area [SLA]) and chemical (leaf carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) concentration) traits, and then assessed ii) how this intraspecific leaf trait variability influenced decomposition rates. Willow leaves within agroforestry treatments exhibited significantly greater leaf area (p = 0.01), SLA (p = 0.002), and leaf N (p = 0.001) than willow leaves in monoculture. Following a 56-day incubation, willow leaves from agroforestry treatments did not decompose more quickly than those in the monoculture. Our results indicate high intraspecific variation in willow leaf traits owing to agroforestry management. However, intraspecific variation in willow leaf traits did not correspond to statistically significant differences in decomposition rates. We show that variation in willow traits near tree rows in agroforestry systems translates into limited variability in agroecosystems processes such as litter decomposition (as compared to monoculture arrangements). Our results have implications for optimal nutrient management in agroforestry systems.

The diversification of agroecosystems with shade trees has a complex role in climate change adaptation. Multiple interactions among shade tree composition, heterogeneous soil conditions, and resulting microclimate modifications makes reproducible evaluations of agroforestry as a climate change adaptation practice challenging. In this study we systematically investigate soil water and nutrient acquisition strategies in cocoa (Theobroma cacao) along a climatic and diversity gradient in Ghana, West Africa. We adopted a functional trait-based approach to comparatively examine cocoa root strategies in monoculture or in agroforestry with a single species of shade tree (Terminalia ivorensis) across two precipitation regimes (optimal and suboptimal dry), and in contrasting edaphic conditions (sandy and loam). Variance decomposition indicated that shade trees explained 20 % of the variability in absorptive root trait covariation in cocoa. However, shade tree effects on trait expression were not systematic and depended on climatic and edaphic conditions. Notably, effects of shade trees were amplified on fine-textured soils, with significantly higher conservative trait values of cocoa absorptive roots when in agroforestry within a suboptimal precipitation regime. Transport root traits (root tissue density, diameter) associated with water and solute transport strongly varied among contrasting climate and edaphic conditions. Structural equation models indicated that soil texture played a critical role in regulating transport root trait expression. In agroforestry, clay content improved soil moisture levels, and, in suboptimal climate, fine root growth rates were positively affected by specific leaf area while being significantly controlled by soil texture. Results describe the importance of soil texture in controlling the effect of shade trees on cocoa cultivated in suboptimal precipitation regimes. Thus, agroforestry success as a climate change adaptation strategy in cocoa systems requires detailed assessments of crop strategies in different climatic conditions, as well as identification of soil-mediated filters on crop function.

Public choice economics, like most economics, typically assigns only a small role to various forms of talk between individuals. By contrast, throughout Richard Wagner’s oeuvre, there is an undercurrent of talk about talk. This essay argues that talk matters because of two key assumptions in Wagner’s approach to public choice. First, talk matters to the extent that individuals are ignorant. There are different forms of ignorance in economic theory which allow talk to communicate different sorts of information. Knightian uncertainty, however, also opens up the possibility that talk can do more. Second, talk matters when individuals have tuistic motivations. When individuals are moved to act based on the actions and judgments of others, talk becomes motivating as well as informative. I illustrate the power of talk in Wagner’s approach by examining the classic arguments put forward in Democracy in Deficit.

F.A. Hayek famously argues that the concept of social justice is incoherent (Hayek 1976, Ch. 9). His argument is inseparable from his theory of spontaneous order. If 'social' in 'social justice' refers to the outcomes of a spontaneous process, social justice becomes meaningless. Hayek's rejection of social justice has also received substantial pushback or qualification in recent years from friendly thinkers who (at least nominally) embrace his concept of spontaneous order. This essay evaluates three sorts of responses to Hayek in order to determine which are successful.

Elinor Ostrom (2011) describes the work of James Buchanan as “foundational” to the Bloomington approach to political economy. This chapter explores the relationship between Buchanan’s “Virginia School” approach to that of the Bloomington School. We examine the foundational role of the Calculus of Consent, both in inspiring Vincent Ostrom’s Political Theory of a Compound Republic and as a key component of the Institutional Analysis and Development framework. We then outline other important connections and areas of overlap between the two schools of thought, such as self-governance and polycentricity.

F.A. Hayek argues that the best that economics can hope for is “explanation of the principle” of complex economic systems, arguing against the feasibility of precise prediction and thus of successful economic planning. However, subsequent work in economics, often under the heading of Market Design, has claimed some ability to design the contours of action situations for success. This essay attempts to resolve this apparent contradiction. We argue that Hayek is essentially correct about the limits of knowledge about broad-scale economic systems, but that local conditions are often close enough to closure to allow for more specific predictions and thus control. The distinction between the open system level and the somewhat closed local level is roughly analogous to the distinction between general equilibrium and partial equilibrium. We then distinguish between economic knowledge that is useful for experts and that which is useful for citizens.

Tree mortality following partial harvesting may significantly affect tree community dynamics, timber supply, and wildlife habitat in managed forests. However, the rates, causes, and consequences of postharvest mortality (PHM) have rarely been investigated in commonly used silvicultural systems. We applied a chronosequence approach combined with tree-ring-based dating of mortality events to investigate PHM following single-tree selection silviculture in a hardwood forest in central Ontario, Canada. Observed rates of PHM were best described by a negative exponential model, with an initial peak of 0.78–0.94% year−1 occurring within the first two years postharvest, and decreasing to ∼0.55% year−1 three through five years postharvest. At six through 10 years postharvest, observed tree mortality was stable at ∼0.21% year−1: these rates were considerably lower than those observed in unmanaged stands at the same site (0.96% year−1). Trees ⩽17 cm in diameter were most susceptible to PHM, as were two softwood species (Picea glauca (Moench) Voss and Abies balsamea (L.) Mill.) and Betula alleghaniensis Brit. Acer saccharum Marsh. and Fagus grandifolia Ehrh. were least susceptible. Causes and types of mortality changed significantly with time after harvest: initially, mechanical damage from skidding and felling resulted in most dead trees observed as downed wood. With time, biotic agents (fungal infections, senescence) became more prevalent agents of mortality, increasing the proportions of standing dead trees. Our results indicate that PHM rates following selection harvesting are small compared to those following other retention harvest systems, but in the long term disproportionate effects on certain species are likely to affect the structure and function of managed northern hardwood forests.

My use of voice or exit can have spillover effects on you. I argue that voice behaves in important respects like a positional good. Positional goods have value only relative to the goods that others possess. Acquiring positional goods imposes negative externalities on others who lose status. Voice grants a form of influence that is relative rather than absolute, and can give rise to a winner-take-all distribution of influence. The more effective your voice, the less effective mine. Exit, by contrast, has properties in common with a network good. A network good is valuable to the extent that other individuals possess the same good. Possession of the good thus generates positive externalities. Exit operates like a network good, generating direct and indirect spillovers that create benefits even for those who do not possess the capacity to exit.

The New Egalitarianism is a strain of thought that draws heavily on critical theory and structuralism, arguing that disparities between groups are due to systemic oppression. This article argues that implementing New Egalitarian ideals in practice would involve transforming morality into an obscurantist epistocracy. The New Egalitarianism is epistocratic in that it relies on the existence of moral experts to determine which actions perpetuate systemic oppression and which advance equality. It is obscurantist in that New Egalitarians tend to question the standing of critics rather than engaging with the substance of their criticism. I contrast these tendencies with a Hayekian view of social morality, arguing that implementing New Egalitarian ideas may run afoul of the moral requirements of an extended social order.

Economists distinguish between technological problems, in which variable means confront a given end, and economic problems, in which given means are allocated across competing ends. James Buchanan and F. A. Hayek each offer constructive criticisms of the standard definition of an economic problem, arguing that economists too easily slide into mechanistic and teleological thinking. Building on these accounts, we argue that there are three key dimensions to the economic problem: exchange, coordination and governance. We then make a case that poverty alleviation is more like an economic problem than a technological one, an economic problem with a small ‘e’. We survey empirical evidence from economics, anthropology and sociology indicating that poverty is not a simple lack of objectively identifiable resources but rather a multidimensional and socially embedded phenomenon. Understanding what poverty alleviation would even look like requires thinking through problems of exchange, coordination and governance.

Deirdre McCloskey's Bourgeois Dignity deploys Israel Kirzner's theory of entrepreneurial discovery in her explanation of the Industrial Revolution. This essay examines whether Kirzner's theory can bear the analytical load that McCloskey would place on it. I identify two potential incongruities between Kirzner's theory and McCloskey's historical account but find them both unconvincing. Kirzner's entrepreneur is a good fit for McCloskey's story. I argue further that the fit can be strengthened by incorporating further elements of Kirzner's theory, including entrepreneurial alertness.

Determining good boundaries for governance jurisdictions is among the most difficult problems in political theory and political philosophy. But to whom the rules of a given jurisdiction applies is a problem that afflicts private as well as public governance. Clubs have boundaries no less than cities, states, or nations. This essay applies Hayek’s conception of competition as a discovery procedure to boundary problems, arguing that good jurisdictional boundaries are subject to a great deal of contingent variation according to particular the conditions of time and place. Philosophical speculation, therefore, cannot fully replace a trial and error process that facilitates social learning about where good boundaries fall. I outline the features of good boundaries that make them subject to such variation, then evaluate two criteria for evaluating whether existing jurisdictional boundaries are good: one that emphasizes ex ante consent to boundaries, and one that focuses on the ability of individuals to exit from jurisdictions ex post, arguing that the exit-focused approach is underappreciated.

Regime uncertainty offers a compelling explanation for the slow recovery from the Great Recession in the United States. Market process theory provides a valuable theoretical framework for elaborating and extending the concept of uncertainty in order to generate new insights. One such insight is the asymmetric effect that episodes of regime uncertainty have on small and medium enterprises, which recovered more slowly from the Great Recession.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to clarify the distinctions and complementary of William Baumol and Israel Kirzner’s classifications of and insights into entrepreneurship, and thus providing a more complete taxonomy of the substance of entrepreneurial activity. This paper also attempts to clarify distinctions between unproductive and destructive entrepreneurship. Design/methodology/approach – This paper illustrates a more complete taxonomy of the substance of entrepreneurial activity by examining entrepreneurial innovation in drug markets both legal and illegal, identifying cases of productive, unproductive, superfluous, erroneous, destructive, and protective entrepreneurship. Findings – This paper finds that the classifications of entrepreneurship (productive, superfluous, unproductive, erroneous, protective and destructive) put forth by Baumol, Kirzner, and the institutional entrepreneurship literature are complementary. While Baumol seeks to explain the disequilibrating tendencies of entrepreneurship, Kirzner seeks to explain the equilibrating tendencies of entrepreneurship within the institutional context. Originality/value – This paper utilizes case studies from legal and illegal drug markets to uniquely and better explain the six cases of entrepreneurship. This paper also contributes to the literature by clearly articulating the complementarity of Baumolian and Kirznerian entrepreneurship.

The continual expansion of rational choice theory to a greater range of social phenomena — from markets to politics and institutions — is a testament to its success. Each further application, however, simultaneously forecloses a potential source of inefficiency in economic systems. Abdicating efficiency considerations impairs economics' explanatory power as much as its normative relevance. In this paper I explore the interconnected roles of subjectivism and knowledge problems in accounting for inefficiency. I conclude that the knowledge-generating properties of institutions allow for efficiency comparisons, but only in the embrace of a thoroughgoing subjectivism.

Richard Wagner's Mind, Society, and Human Action is an important contribution to our understanding of both economic science and real-world economies. This essay presents a diagrammatical schema for communicating Wagner's vision of social processes and contrasting it with other approaches.