Richard E. Wagner is a professor of economics

Economics

Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...

 at George Mason University

George Mason University

George Mason University is a public university based in unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, south of and adjacent to the city of Fairfax. Additional campuses are located nearby in Arlington County, Prince William County, and Loudoun County...

. He works primarily in the fields of public finance

Public finance

Public finance is the revenue and expenditure of public authoritiesThe purview of public finance is considered to be threefold: governmental effects on efficient allocation of resources, distribution of income, and macroeconomic stabilization.-Overview:The proper role of government provides a...

 and public choice

Public choice theory

In economics, public choice theory is the use of modern economic tools to study problems that traditionally are in the province of political science...

.

Wagner received his doctorate in economics from the University of Virginia

University of Virginia

The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...

, studying under James M. Buchanan

James M. Buchanan

James McGill Buchanan, Jr. is an American economist known for his work on public choice theory, for which he received the 1986 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. Buchanan's work initiated research on how politicians' self-interest and non-economic forces affect government economic policy...

. Wagner's work centers on the notion that macroeconomic phenomena are emergent

Emergence

In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence is the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions. Emergence is central to the theories of integrative levels and of complex systems....

, rather than being objects of choice. In addition to Buchanan, major influences on his thought include Carl Menger

Carl Menger

Carl Menger was the founder of the Austrian School of economics, famous for contributing to the development of the theory of marginal utility, which contested the cost-of-production theories of value, developed by the classical economists such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo.- Biography :Menger...

, Thomas Schelling

Thomas Schelling

Thomas Crombie Schelling is an American economist and professor of foreign affairs, national security, nuclear strategy, and arms control at the School of Public Policy at University of Maryland, College Park. He is also co-faculty at the New England Complex Systems Institute...

, and scholars of the Italian school of public financehttp://mason.gmu.edu/~rwagner/Diffusion%20of%20Italian%20Public%20Finance.PDF.

Selected publications

• The Fiscal Organization of American Federalism (1971)
• "Revenue Structure, Fiscal Illusion, and Budgetary Choice" in Public Choice vol. 25, no. 1 (1976)
• "Institutional Constraints and Local Community Formation" in American Economic Review vol. 66, no. 2 (1976)
• Democracy in Deficit: The Political Legacy of Lord Keynes (co-authored with Buchanan) (1977)
• Public Finance: Revenues and Expenditures in a Democratic Society (1983)
• To Promote the General Welfare: Market Processes vs. Political Transfers (1989)
• The Economics of Smoking (co-authored with Robert Tollison
  Robert Tollison
  Robert D. Tollison is an American economist who specializes in public choice theory.-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...
  
  ) (1991)
• "Romance, Realism, and Economic Reform" (co-authored with Tollison) in Kyklos vol. 44, no. 1 (1991)
• Trade Protection in the United States (co-authored with Charles Rowley and Willem Thorbecke) (1995)
• Fiscal Sociology and the Theory of Public Finance (2007)

External links

• Wagner's website at GMU