Professor Dennis O'Keeffe

We are sad to announce that Prof Dennis O'Keeffe has died. He was a very distinguished educationist who did original and influential research on subjects that included truancy and teacher training. He was Professor of Social Science at the University of Buckingham. He attracted national attention with his report on "School Attendance and Truancy (1995)," taking the view that truancy was an almost inevitable result of poor courses that failed to entice the attention of students. With the Adam Smith Institute he published "The Wayward Elite" in 1990, a major critique of British teacher-education, and sat on the ASI's Scholars' Board. He was a keen supporter of several of the Free Market think tanks in addition to the ASI, including the IEA, the CPS, and Civitas, and participated in many of their activities. His attendance was always appreciated at our lectures and lunches, as much for his goodwill and charm as well as for his considerable intellect.

Prof. John Hibbs: an influential life

We are sad to learn of the death of Prof John Hibbs in his 89th year. Dr Hibbs was a celebrated transport economist who chose to publish many of his scholarly studies with the Adam Smith Institute. He was hugely influential in the denationalization and deregulation of the UK's bus industry. He wrote Bus Deregulation: the Next Step (1982), The Debate on Bus Regulation (1985), Deregulated Decade (1997, with Matthew Bradley), Tomorrow's Way (1992, with Gabriel Roth) and Trouble with the Authorities (1998).

Dr Hibbs was an active supporter of the ASI, as a member of our Scholars' Board and as a frequent presence at our lunches and lectures. He was full of courtesy and charm, and always found time to talk to our young members. A full obituary can be found here.

Gordon Tullock: a great economist with no degree in economics

It is sad to report the death of Gordon Tullock. He was a friend, likeable and respected as a great economist – even though he had no degree in economics.He came, rather, from a public administration background, which was why he was the perfect partner to co-author The Calculus of Consent (1962) with James M Buchanan. The book was a counterblast to the 'welfare economics' of the day, which saw market failure and prescribed cost-benefit analysis and government intervention. But the book showed, comprehensively and clinically, how there was  government failure too. Politicians and officials are not angels, and their decisions are motivated by their own vested interests. Elections too are not a measure of 'the public interest' but a contest between competing and conflicting interests, which no amount of cost benefit analysis can resolve. The book became the foundation for what was to be an entire branch of economics – or perhaps political science – called Public Choice. The public choice economists, applied the tools of economics – the science of choice – to the democratic decision process. They found that the behaviour of voters, politicians and bureaucrats in the political market place is little different from the behaviour of buyers and sellers in economic markets. They too are self-interested and largely motivated by maximising their own 'utility', rather than that of 'the public'.

Following this approach, Tullock, Buchanan and fellow thinkers in the 'Virginia School', which focused on real world political institutions, realised that democratic processes were too often a very messy, exploitative and irrational way to make choices. They concluded that we should not be dewy-eyed about government decision making, and that we should limit it only to the things that are both crucial to do and simply cannot be done any other way.

Buchanan, in particular, emphasised the need for constitutional restraints so as to curb the exploitation of minorities by majorities, or of the silent majority by activist interest groups. On that front, Tullock will be particularly remembered for his delineation of the concept of Rent Seeking. The concept, and even the term, predated that work, but his contribution was to show how the cost of lobbying for government perks and privileges was economically inefficient and politically corrupt. He observed – the 'Tullock Paradox' – that the cost of rent seeking was often very low in proportion to the potential payoffs. A little lobbying can win potentially massive privileges (such as 'quality' regulation that effectively keeps out the competition). So it is no surprise that the lobbying industry has grown so large. And the more that government's range, power and tax take expands, the larger are the potential gains.

Many of Tullock's friends and colleagues were disappointed that he did not share in James M Buchanan's 1986 Nobel Prize. He never complained about it; and he will still be remembered with respect and affection.

For more on the Public Choice School, see Eamonn Butler's Public Choice – A Primer