# An Introduction to Public Choice **URL:** **By** Peter Van Doren, Aaron Ross Powell, Trevor Burrus **Published:** January 12, 2015 --- Peter Van Doren returns to Free Thoughts for a discussion on public choice economics and how it affects political decision making. This week Peter Van Doren joins us to explain the economics of decision making in politics. What is public choice theory and how does it explain what happens in a majority rules democracy? Is public choice a type of macroeconomic theory? How does ordering a series of votes change their outcome? What’s rent-seeking? What does the phrase “concentrated benefits and diffuse costs” mean? What’s the median voter theorem and how does it affect our politics in America? **Show Notes and Further Reading** Kenneth Arrow, [_Social Choice and Individual Values_](http://www.amazon.com/Social-Choice-Individual-Values-Kenneth/dp/1614273456/) (book) Anthony Downs, [_An Economic Theory of Democracy_](http://www.amazon.com/Economic-Theory-Democracy-Anthony-Downs/dp/0060417501/) (book) Mancur Olson, [_The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups_](http://www.amazon.com/Logic-Collective-Action-printing-appendix/dp/0674537513/) (book) James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, [_The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy_](http://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Consent-Selected-Gordon-Tullock/dp/0865975329/) (book) Michael E. Levine and Charles R. Plott, ["Agenda Influence and Its Implications"](http://karlan.yale.edu/fieldexperiments/papers/00294.pdf) (article) [Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_Realignment_and_Closure) (Wikipedia article) [Say’s Law](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Say%27s_law) (Wikipedia article) [Pareto Efficiency](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_efficiency) (Wikipedia article) [Resisting the Growth of Governments](https://www.libertarianism.org/videos/resisting-growth-governments) (video)