Robert Tollison

.

Education

A native of Spartanburg, South Carolina, Tollison attended local Wofford College where he earned an A.B. in business administration and economics in 1964. He completed an M.A. in economics at the University of Alabama a year later.Tollison, Robert D. "Curriculum vitae". University of Mississippi. [http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/economics/btollison/tollisonvita.htm] ] After completing his master's in Tuscaloosa, Tollison moved to Virginia to begin teaching at Longwood University, then called "Longwood College." Shortly thereafter he commenced work on his Ph.D. in economics at the University of Virginia. He finished his doctoral degree in 1969.

Professional life

Tollison's first academic position as a Ph.D. was at Cornell University, where he would teach from 1969 until 1973. He then took a job at Texas A&M University where he became the economics department head after a little more than a year. He held this position with Texas A&M until 1977 when, after having spent a year as a visiting professor at the University of Miami's law school, Tollison accepted a new post at Virginia Tech as professor in that school's economics department. Tollison left VT in 1981 to work in various roles with the Federal Trade Commission until 1983.

After leaving the FTC, Tollison returned to academia, eventually teaching at Clemson University, George Mason University, the University of Mississippi, ["Faculty homepage for Robert Tollison." University of Mississippi. [http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/economics/btollison/] ] Arizona State University, and Florida State University. He is currently on the editorial boards for the "Journal of Sports Economics", "Constitutional Political Economy", ["Faculty bio: Robert Tollison" Clemson University. [http://people.clemson.edu/~rtollis/] ] and "Public Choice". ["Public Choice Journal." The Locke Institute. [http://www.thelockeinstitute.org/publicchoice.html] ] He is on the board of advisors for the Independent Institute.

He is currently Professor of Economics and BB&T Senior Fellow at Clemson University in Clemson, South Carolina.

Contributions

Tollison's areas of particular interest include the economics of religion, history of economic thought, sports economics, antitrust theory, and tobacco policy. His textbook with Robert Ekelund, "Economics", is now in its seventh edition.

Mercantilism

According to a "Libertarian Forum" review of Tollison and Ekelund's "Mercantilism as a Rent Seeking Society", a study of the political economy of mercantilism, :"...using public choice analysis, Ekelund and Tollison assert that English mercantilism declined because the rise of parliamentary power raised the lobbying costs for monopoly privileges. As parliament refused to delegate its newly won powers to anybody, any prospective monopolist had to secure majorities in the legislature as well as the acquiescence of the king.... [T] he authors stress the similarity between mercantilism and present-day economic regulation, despite the changes in the political system." [Cooper, Richard A. "Mercantilism and Public Choice." "Libertarian Forum". November/December 1983. [http://www.mises.org/journals/lf/1983/1983_11-12.pdf] ]

Economics of sports

Tollison's "The National Collegiate Athletic Association: A Study in Cartel Behavior", in addition to a number of journal articles on the economics of sports, [McCormick, Robert E. and Robert Tollison. "Why do black basketball players work more for less money?" "Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization". Vol. 44(2). [http://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jeborg/v44y2001i2p201-219.html] ] [Goff, Brian L. and William F. Shughart and Robert Tollison. "Moral Hazard and the Effects of the Designated Hitter Rule Revisited," "Economic Inquiry". Vol. 36(4). [http://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/ecinqu/v36y1998i4p688-92.html] ] led to Tollison's work being frequently cited in the area of sports economics. ["Citations of Robert D. Tollison." IDEAS. [http://ideas.repec.org/e/c/pto21.html] ]

Books

As author:

*"Balanced Budgets, Fiscal Responsibility, and the Constitution" with Richard E. Wagner. San Francisco, CA: Cato Institute, 1980.

*"Politicians, Legislation, and the Economy: An Inquiry into the Interest Group Theory of Government" with R. McCormick. Boston, MA: Martinus Nijhoff, 1981.

*"Mercantilism as a Rent Seeking Society" with Robert Ekelund. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 1982.

*"El Analisis Economico De Lo Politico" with James M. Buchanan and R.E. McCormick. Madrid, Spain: Instituto de Estudios Economicos, 1984.

*"Economics" with R. Ekelund. Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1986.

*"Smoking and the State" with R. Wagner. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath, 1988.

*"Concentration and Competition: The Economics of the Carbonated Soft Drink Industry" with D. Kaplan and R. Higgins. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath, 1990.

*"The Economics of Smoking: Getting It Right" with R. Wagner. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991.

*"The National Collegiate Athletic Association: A Study in Cartel Behavior" with A. Fleisher and B. Goff. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1992.

*"Sacred Trust: The Medieval Church as an Economic Firm" with R. Ekelund, R. Hebert, G. Anderson, and A. Davis. London, England: Oxford University Press, 1996.
*"Politicized Economies: Monarchy, Monopolies, and Mercantilism" with R. Ekelund. College Station, TX: Texas A&M Press, 1997.

As editor:

*"Theory of Public Choice: Political Applications of Economics" with James M. Buchanan. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1972.

*"The Economic Approach to Public Policy: Selected Readings" with R. Amacher and T. Willett. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1976.

*"What Should Economists Do?" by James M. Buchanan; compiled and edited with Geoffrey Brennan. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Press, 1979.

*"The Political Economy of Antitrust" Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath, 1980.

*"Towards a Theory of the Rent Seeking Society" with James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 1980.

*"Theory of Public Choice II" with James M. Buchanan. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1984.

*"Smoking and Society: Toward a Balanced Assessment" Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath, 1986. (Japanese translation, 1987)

*"Deficits" with James M. Buchanan and Charles Rowley. Oxford, England: Basil Blackwell, 1987. (Japanese translation, 1990)

*"Economics: Between Predictive Science and Moral Philosophy" by James M. Buchanan; compiled and edited with V. Vanberg. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 1987.

*"Clearing the Air: Perspectives on Environmental Tobacco Smoke" Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath, 1988. (Spanish translation, 1989)

*"The Political Economy of Rent Seeking" with C. Rowley and G. Tullock. Boston, MA: Kluwer, 1988.

*"Explorations into Constitutional Economics" by James M. Buchanan; compiled and edited with V. Van­ber. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 1989.

*"Predicting Politics: Essays in Empirical Public Choice" with M. Crain. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1990.

*"Sportometrics" with B. Goff. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 1990.

*"The Next Twenty Five Years of Public Choice" with C. Rowley and F. Schneider. Boston, MA: Kluwer, 1993.

*"On the Trail of Homo Economicus" by Gordon Tullock; compiled and edited with G. Brady. Fairfax, VA: George Mason University Press, 1994.

*"The Economic Analysis of Rent Seeking" with R. Congleton. London, England: Edward Elgar, 1995. (Japanese translation, 2002)

*"The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan" compiled and edited with G. Brennan and H. Kliemt. (20 volumes) Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1999-2002.

*"Method and Morals in Constitutional Economics: Essays in Honor of James M. Buchanan" with G. Brennan and H. Kliemt. Berlin, Germany: Springer-Verlag, 2002.

*"The Economics of Budget Deficits" with W. Shughart and C. Rowley. (two volumes) London, England: Elgar, 2002.

External links

* [http://ideas.repec.org/e/pto21.html IDEAS profile] for Robert D. Tollison.
* [http://people.clemson.edu/~rtollis/ Faculty bio] at Clemson University.

Notes