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The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects or despises, or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects, in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusion may remain inviolate.
Sir Francis BaconIn the fifty some years since the field of public choice was launched with the works of Black (1948a,b), Buchanan (1949), and Arrow(1951), it has grown tremendously in both breadth and depth. A comparison of the lengths of Public Choice published in 1979, Public Choice II published in 1989, and Public Choice III actually understates the growth of the field, since the current text leaves uncovered or only lightly covered a far greater fraction of the literature than did the one published in 1979.
The growth of the literature also reflects a growth in the number of people working in the field. This growth has been particularly conspicuous in political science. Three of the major figures in the field – Kenneth Arrow, James Buchanan, and Amartya Sen – have been awarded Nobel prizes. It would seem reasonable to conclude from these developments that the experiment of introducing rational actor models into the study of politics has been a success.
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