Arthur T. Denzau

Arthur T. Denzau (Born. June 15, 1947) is Professor of Economics at Claremont Graduate University, where he also serves as Associate Dean of the School of Politics and Economics.

Autobiography

My research is gradually coming to focus on a question that I heard Nobel laureate Douglass North pose nine years ago: "Why have almost all societies in human history failed to grow economically in per capita terms for more than a generation?" Much of my current work, along with my students here at CGU deals pretty directly with this question: we ask what it is that governments do to hinder or destroy economic growth. These policies result from the attempts to achieve and maintain political power, and forcefully show the importance of institutions in channeling competition into wealth-creating or wealth-redistributing paths. Little is yet known as to how to transform a society on a redistribution path into one on the creation path.

In most of my work, I have tried to explain governmental decision making in democratic settings. From the beginning, my work has shown that the details of the political constitution matter. This prepared me for becoming a colleague of Douglass North in 1983, and learning his New Institutionalist approach to economics and history. I was already part of what became the New Institutionalism in Political Science, writing four articles in top journals in that field. I now wish to study features of democratic polities in terms of their effects on economic activity, and their emergence within the polity. My most recent article is co-authored with North, and explains the emergence of ideologies and institutions as shared mental models that enable easier communication and coordination of joint activities. We are working with a team of experimental economists to test some of our ideas.

I began my education at Caltech, expecting to be a scientist or engineer. I soon transferred to Arizona State University, and began working 56 hours a week as an electronic technician and then engineer at Motorola, helping to make integrated circuits. My interests in the semiconductor industry and computers dates from this five year experience. After graduating in mathematics in 1969, I attended the Arizona State Law School for the fall semester, leaving although ranking first in my class. I switched from working nights to working day shift, and started taking economics at night. This caused me to go to Washington University and get my Ph.D. in 1973, with a dissertation that added a majority rule governmental sector to the standard economic model.

My first job after graduate school was at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (VPI), where I was associated with the Center for the Study of Public Choice until 1975. I returned to my doctoral institution in 1981, where I was jointly appointed in Murray Weidenbaum's Center for the Study of American Business. I have also taught at my alma mater, Arizona State University, and at Tulane University.

Education

* Ph.D., Washington University, 1973, Economics
* Dissertation: "Political-Economic Equilibrium: A Synthesis of Majority Voting and General Economic Equilibrium."
* M.A., Washington University, 1971, Economics.
* B.S., Arizona State University and Law College, Mathematics, 1965-70.
* California Institute of Technology, 1964-65.

Teaching and Research Interests

* Public Economics
* Evolutionary Economics
* Industrial Organization Political Economy of Trade
* Technological Change Political Economy of Japan and Asia
* Political Economy of Japan Public Economics
* Micro-Economic Theory Institutional Change
* Law and Economics Technological Change
* History of Thought Local Educational Finance
* Economics of Organization Public Policy
* Econometrics
* Policy Analysis
* Asian Economic Development

Professional Experience

* Associate Dean, School of Politics and Economics, Claremont Graduate University, 2006-
* Senior Research Fellow, Theodore Roosevelt Institute, 2005-
* Director, California Policy Institute at Claremont, Claremont Graduate University, 2003-4
* Dean, School of Politics and Economics, Claremont Graduate University, 2001-3
* Professor, Economics Department, Claremont Graduate University, 2001-
* John C. Lincoln Fellow, 1998-2002
* Professor and Chair, Economics Department, Claremont Graduate University, 1994-2001
* Visiting Professor, Department of Economics and Finance, Sultan Qaboos University, 2000.
* Visiting Professor, Faculty of Economics, Chulalongkong University, Bangkok, 1998-1999.
* Visiting Professor, Faculty of Business Administration, Kasetsart University, Bangkok, 1997-
* Visiting Professor, Faculty of Public Administration, NIDA, Bangkok, 1996
* Visiting Professor, Economics Program, Claremont Graduate School, 1993-1994
* Visiting Professor, Murphy Institute of Political Economy, Tulane University, Spring 1990.
* Visiting Professor, School of Public Affairs, Arizona State University, Fall 1989.
* Professor, Department of Economics, Washington University, (St. Louis) 1985-95.
* Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Washington University, (St. Louis) 1982 - 1985.
* Fellow, Center for Political Economy, Washington University, 1982-95.
* Visiting Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Washington University, 1981 - 1982.
* Research Associate, Center for the Study of American Business, Washington University, 1981.
* Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1980 - 1982.
* Research Associate, Center For Study of Public Choice, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1979 - 1982.
* Visiting Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1979 - 1980.
* Associate Professor, Department of Economics, University of Arizona, 1979 - 1980.
* National Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, September 1976 - August, 1977.
* Research Specialist, Division of Economics and Business Research, University of Arizona, 1975 - 1977.
* Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, University of Arizona, 1975 - 1979.
* Research Associate, Center for Study of Public Choice, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1973 - 1975.
* Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1973 - 1975.
* Economic Researcher, June 1971 - June 1972 for Program for the Application of Communication Satellites to Education, Washington University (St. Louis).
* Electrical Engineer, 1965 - 1970, Motorola SPD, Integrated Circuits Division, Mesa, Arizona.

Publications

Journal Articles

* "An Empirical Survey of Studies on Public School Spending," National Tax Journal, 28 (June 1975), 241-249.
* "Continuity of Majority Rule Equilibrium," Econometrica, (with R. Parks), 43 (September 1975), 853-866.
* "A Note on Religious Participation and Contributions," Frontiers of Economics, 2 (1976), 153-156.
* "Benefit Shares and Majority Voting," American Economic Review, (with R. Mackay), 66 (March 1976), 69-76.
* "Bureaucratic Discretion and Public Sector Budgets," Arizona Review (with R. Mackay) 25 (May 1976), 1-9.
* "A Problem with Public Sector Preferences," Journal of Economic Theory, (with R. Parks), 14 (April 1977), 454-457.
* "Expected Plurality Voting Equilibrium and Social Choice Functions," Review of Economic Studies, (with Amoz Kats), 44 (June 1977), 227-233.
* "A Quasi-Experimental Method for Studying Public Sector Demands," Southern Economic Journal, (with J.C. Walcutt and R.N. Weisz), 44 (July 1977), 306-312.
* "Litigation Expenditures as Private Determinants of Judicial Decisions: A Comment," Journal of Legal Studies, 8(2) (March 1979), 296-302.
* "Deriving Public Sector Preferences," Journal of Public Economics, (with R. Parks), 11(3) (June 1979), 335-352.
* "Spending Limitations, Agenda Control and Voters' Expectations," National Tax Journal, (with R. Mackay and C. Weaver), 32 (June 1979), 189-200.
* "On the Initiative-Referendum Option and the Control of Monopoly Government," COUPE Papers on Public Economics, (with R. Mackay and C. Weaver), 5 (1980), 191-22.
* "Limits on Public Provision of Private Goods: Reply and Further Analysis," American Economic Review, (with R. Mackay), 70(3) (June 1980), 466-473.
* "A Model of Benefit and Tax Share Discrimination by a Monopoly Bureau," Journal of Public Economics, (with R. Mackay), 13(3) (June 1980), 341-368.
* "Structure Induced Equilibrium and Perfect Foresight Expectations," American Journal of Political Science, (with Robert Mackay), 25(4) (November 1981), 762-779.
* "Forward: The Political Economy of Land Use Regulation," Urban Law Annual, (with Barry R. Weingast), 23 (1982), 385-405.
* "Existence of Voting-Market Equilibria," Journal of Economic Theory, (with R. Parks), 30(2) (Aug. 1983) 243-265.
* "Gate-Keeping and Monopoly Power of Committees: An Analysis of Sincere and Sophisticated Behavior," American Journal of Political Science, (with R. Mackay), 27(4) (Nov. 1983) 740-761.
* "Determinants of Local School Spending: Some Consistent Estimates," Public Choice, (with Kevin Grier), (1984), 375-383.
* "Removing the Shackles," Transaction: and Social Science and Modern SOCIETY, 22(1) (Nov./Dec. 1984) 29-36.
* "Tax System and Tax Shares," Public Choice (with Robert J. Mackay), 45 (1984), 35-47.
* "Multi-Agent Equilibria with Market and Ranking Objectives," Social Choice and Welfare (with Amoz Kats and Steve Slutsky), 2 (1985), 95-117.
* "Constitutional Change and Agenda Control," Public Choice 47 (1985), 183-217.
* "Farquharson and Fenno: Sophisticated Voting and Home Style," American Political Science Review (with William Riker and Kenneth Shepsle, 79 (Dec. 1985), 1117-1135.
* "Legislators and Interest Groups: How Unorganized Interests Get Represented," American Political Science Review (with Michael C. Munger), 80 (March 1986), 89-106.
* "Unregulated Social Science," book review, Regulation (Nov. 1986), 51-52.
* "Industrial Hara Kiri: How Protectionism Destroys Manufacturing Jobs," Policy Review 40 (Spring 1987), 80-81.
* "Profit and Expenditure Functions in Basic Public Finance: An Expository Note," Economic Inquiry, (with E. Greenberg), XXVI (January 1988), 145-158.
* "The Japanese Automobile Cartel: Made in the USA," Regulation (1988,1), 11-16.
* "Trade Protection Comes to Silicon Valley," Society (March 1, 1989), 38-45.
* "Bayesian Estimation of Proportions with an Entropy Prior," (with Edward Greenberg and Patrick Gibbons). Communications in Statistics - Theory and Methods, Vol. 18, #5, 1989, pp. 1843-1861.
* "The DRAM Futures Contracts: Problems of Viability," ICECAP (forthcoming).
* "We Voted for This? Institutions and Educational Spending," (with G. Olmsted and J. Roberts). Journal of Public Economics, 52 (1993), 363-76.
* "A Defective Product in the American Motor Vehicle Market? The Economic Strategy Institute Report on the Future of the Auto Industry, and H.R. 5100," J.A.M.A. Forum, 11(1) (Nov. 1992), 12-7.
* "Shared Mental Models: Ideologies and Institutions," (with Douglass C. North) Kyklos 47(1) (1994), 3-31; (various reprintings in edited volumes).
* “The Kyoto Protocol and Climate Change: Lessons From the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries,” (Waleed Al-Saif and Thomas Willett) Energy Watchers X (1999), 27-35.
* “When Does Inflation Hurt Economic Growth? Different Nonlinearities for Different Economies,” (with Richard C.K. Burdekin, Thomas Willett, Manfred W. Keil, Thitithep Sitthiyot), Journal of Macroeconomics 26 (2004), 519-32.
* “The Falsification of Four Popular Hypotheses About International Financial Behavior During the Asian Crisis” (with Aida Budiman, Thomas Willett, Gab-Je Jo, Cesar Ramos, and John Thomas), World Economy, 27(1) (Jan. 2004), 25-44.

Articles in Edited Volumes

* Essays on Unorthodox Strategies: Anarchy, Politics, and Population, (A Memorial Volume in Honor of Winston C. Bush.) Edited by Arthur T. Denzau and Robert J. Mackay. Public Choice Society. 1976.
* "The Voting Behavior of Bureaucrats and Public Sector Growth," (with Winston C. Bush) in Thomas Borcherding (ed.), Budgets and Bureaucrats: The Origins of Government Growth, (Duke University Press, 1977), 90-99.
* "Strategic Behavior in the Theory of Legislatures," (with W. Riker and K.A. Shepsle) in R. Noll (ed.) volume on Coret Conference on Political Economy at Stanford University, March 15-17, 1984.
* "Testing for Economic and Political Effects of Social Security Funding," in Carolyn L. Weaver (ed.), Social Security's Looming Surpluses: Prospects and Implications, Washington, D.C: A.E.I. Press, 1990, 139-43.
* "Politicized Prices," in Stephen T. Easton and Michael A. Walker (eds.), Rating Global Economic Freedom, Vancouver, B.C: Fraser Institute, 1992, 285-323.
* “Economics is an evolutionary science,” (with Paul J. Zak), in A. Somit and S.A. Peterson (eds.), Evolutionary Approaches in the Behavioral Sciences, Vol. 8, JAI Press, 2001, pp. 31-65.
* “Explore and exploit: An evolutionary analysis of institutional dynamics,” (with Paul J. Zak), in A. Somit and S.A. Peterson (eds.), Human Nature and Public Policy: An Evolutionary Approach, Palgrave Press (St. Martin’s), 2003, 139-60.
* “Learning and shared mental models: A postscript on shared mental models,” (with Douglass C. North and Ravi K. Roy), in A.T. Denzau, R.K. Roy and T.D. Willett (eds).,
* Neoliberalism: Global experiments with a shared mental model, London: Routledge, Dec. 2006.
* “East Asia and Neoliberal mental models,” (with R.K. Roy), in A.T. Denzau, R.K. Roy and T.D. Willett (eds)., Neoliberalism: Global experiments with a shared mental model, London: Routledge, Dec. 2006.
* “Introduction: Neoliberalism as shared mental model,” (with R.K. Roy and T.D. Willett), in A.T. Denzau, R.K. Roy and T.D. Willett (eds)., Neoliberalism: Global experiments with a shared mental model, London: Routledge, Dec. 2006.

Monographs

* Public Education Finances, 1949-1985, Memorandum 71-4, Center for Development Technology, Washington University (St. Louis) Nov. 1971; ERIC - ED 057 573.
* Future Development of Instructional Television, Memorandum 71-5, Center for Development Technology, Washington University (St. Louis) Nov. 1971; ERIC - Ed 057 574 (jointly with Harold J. Barnett).
* The Unrestrained Growth of Federal Credit Programs (with Clifford M. Hardin), Formal Paper 45, CSAB, Washington University (St. Louis), May 1983.
*Company Retirement Plans after Eight Years of ERISA, (with C. Hardin), Formal Publication No. 55, CSAB, Washington University (St. Louis), May 1983.
* Will an "Industrial Policy" Work for the United States? Formal Publication No. 57, CSAB, Washington University (St. Louis), Sept. 1983.
* A National Development Bank: Ghost of the RFC Past, (with C. Hardin), Formal Publication No. 62, CSAB, Washington University (St. Louis), June 1984.
* Closing the Back Door on Federal Spending: Better Management of Federal Credit, (with C. Hardin), Formal Publication No. 64, CSAB, Washington University (St. Louis), September 1984.
* Facing up to the Problems Besetting "Big Steel, Working Paper 90, CSAB, Washington University (St. Louis), December 1984.
* American Steel: Responding to Foreign Competition. Formal Publication 66, CSAB, Washington University, St. Louis, December 1985.
* "Foreign Debt, Trade Protection and the American Firm in International Trade." OP 49, CSAB, Washington University, St. Louis, December 1985.
* Made in America: The 1981 Japanese Automobile Cartel, Formal Publication 76, August 1986.
* "Can Trade Protection Save Jobs?" OP 62, CSAB, Washington University, St. Louis, April, 1987.
* How Import Restraints Reduce Employment, FP 80, CSAB, Washington University (St. Louis), June 1987.
* “A Chile Plus Approach to Managing International Financial Flows,” (with T. Willett), Policy Brief, Policy Brief, Lowe Institute, Issue No. 99-03, Oct. 1999.
* “A Framework for Managing International Financial Flows in the Vulnerability Zone,” (with T. Willett), Policy Brief, Lowe Institute, CMC, Dec., 1999.
* Microeconomic Analysis: Markets and Dynamics, Homewood, IL: Irwin, 1992.
* Fiscal Policy Convergence from Reagan to Blair: The Left Veers Right?, (with Ravi Roy), London: Routledge Press, 2003.
* Neoliberalism: Global experiments with a shared mental model, with R.K. Roy and T.D. Willett( eds.), London: Routledge, forthcoming.

Completed Papers

* Public Sector Tax Neutrality," Domestic Studies Occasional Paper 76-8, Hoover Institution, May 1977.
* "Structure Induced Equilibrium, Earmarking and General Fund Financing," mimeo, Center for Study of Public Choice, (with R. Mackay and C. Weaver), CE 79-7-3.
* "On the Possibility of Majority Rule Equilibrium with Agenda Costs," Center for Study of Public Choice, (with R. Mackay and C. Weaver), CE 79-11-1, revised Feb. 1981.
* "An Empirical Assessment of the Effect of the Item Veto on Budgetary Levels," (with Kevin Sigrist). Mimeo, Center in Political Economy, Washington University, St. Louis, August 1985.
* "A Factor Struggle Democracy: Majority Rule Equilibrium on the Factor-Price Frontier," Mimeo., Center in Political Economy, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, April 1988.
* "Thomas Jefferson and the Failure to Convict Justice Samuel P. Chase," revised Oct., 1990.
* "Learning, the Entrepreneur and New Product Introduction: The Commencement of Broadcast Radio," Mimeo, Center in Political Economy, November 1991.
* "An Organization as a Parallel Distributed Processing System," Mimeo., Dept. of Economics, June 1992.
* “What is globalization: World Markets as a Tightly Coupled System,” Dept. of Economics, Oct. 2000.
* “The Future of Oil Prices and the Market for Renewable Energy Sources,” UNESCO Task Group Conference, Sultan Qaboos University, Nov. 2000.
* “Paradigms, coalitions, and policy change: The case of deficit reduction in the U.S. from Gramm-Rudman to the Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1990 and beyond,” Department of Politics and Policy, March 2002.
* “The demand for bribed votes and the secret ballot in the U.K., 1835-1880,” with R.M. Coats and T.R. Dalton, presented at Southern Economics Association, Nov. 2004, submitted to Public Choice.
* “The WTO does promote trade,” with M.H. Kim, submitted to American Economic Review.
* “Does public good provision determine an incumbent’s fate? Evidence from India,” with S. Paul, submitted to Public Choice, October 2006.

Grants and Contracts (Principal Investigator)

* Department of Labor, "Econometric Modeling of Local Labor Markets," ETA/OPER 20-04-76-55, October 1976 - March 1978.
* Department of Labor, "The Impact of Unemployment Insurance Benefits on Local Economies," ONP/UIS 99-6-807-23, October 1976 - March 1978.
* National Science Foundation, Economics Program, "Resource Allocation in the Public Sector," SOC 76-22438, January 1977 - June 1979.
* National Science Foundation, Economics Program, "Resource Allocation in the Public Sector," SOC-7908561, July 1979 - December 1981.
* Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, “The Fiscal Impact of Moving Business Investment out of Bangkok,” June 1996 – January 1997.
* Riordan Foundation, “California state budget studies,” July 2003 – July 2004.

Journal Referee

* American Economic Review Journal of Public Economics
* Econometrica Journal of Theoretical Politics
* Economic Inquiry National Tax Journal
* Journal of Law, Economics and Public Choice
* Organization Public Finance Quarterly
* Journal of Legal Studies Review of Economic Studies
* Journal of Mathematical Sociology Southern Economics Journal
* Journal of Political Economy American Political Science Review
* American Journal of Political Science Science
* Journal of Institutional Economics

Proposal Reviewer

* National Science Foundation

References

* Professors Wilhelm Neuefeind, Robert P. Parks, Edward Greenberg, Murray Weidenbaum, and Douglass C. North, all of the Department of Economics, Washington University.
* Daniel Mazmanian, Dean, University of Southern California School of Policy, Planning & Development.
* Professor Kenneth A. Shepsle, Department of Political Science, Harvard University.
* Ronald A. Cass, Dean, Boston University School of Law.
* Professor Theodore C. Bergstrom, Department of Economics, University of California – Santa Barbara.
* Professor Vernon L. Smith, Department of Economics, George Mason University.
* Professor Gordon Tullock, Departments of Economics and Political Science, George Mason University.
* Professor Otto A. Davis, School of Urban and Public Affairs, Carnegie-Mellon University.
* Professor Robert J. Mackay, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, Center for the Study of Contract Futures, Reston, VA.

Honors and Awards

* Finalist (one of two), James Leslie Barr Award in Applied Public Economics, 1980.
* National Fellow, Hoover Institution, September 1976-August 1977.
* Woodrow Wilson National Dissertation Fellowship, June 1972-September 1973.
* University Fellow, 1971-1972.