Elinor Ostrom of Indiana University won the Nobel Prize in Economics yesterday along with Oliver Williamson of UC Berkeley. Ostrom is a political scientist who has written extensively using the Public Choice theory of economics. Ostrom and her husband Vincent founded the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University.
Her work on local government structure shows why the forced annexation laws in NC result in inefficient and less responsive government. Her empirical research on police organizations uses the economic theory of the firm to show that the larger the unit of government the more it resembles a monopoly firm becoming less efficient and less responsive to citizen preferences. In other words, the NC forced annexation law allows small NC cities to become larger and more monopolistic and large NC cities to become even larger monopolies. See her research on local government in Polycentricity and Local Public Economies, Michael D. McGinnis editor 1999.
She also demonstrates with fascinating case studies from around the world that individuals can solve common property problems without government or private ownership in Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions of Collective Action, Elinor Ostrom 1990.
I also recommend Vincent Ostrom?s book The Intellectual Crisis in American Public Administration. He uses the theories in Federalist Papers and Tocqueville?s Democracy in America to destroy the Progressive era theory of bureaucracy that dominates the country today. His ideas are relevant to the current discussion of the problems faced by the Wake County school system.
JLF reports on NC?s forced annexation laws are here, here, and here.
