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Increased integration of the social studies into language arts instructional time in elementary schools, has led to a common practice of covering social studies content through use of children’s literature. Though the two content areas are covered in tandem, the primary foci are the language arts objectives. The authors suggest teaching with themed text sets, developed using carefully selected social studies topics and inquiries, not only addresses English Language Arts standards but also allows for authentic and meaningful social studies instruction. A four-step process for developing themed text sets is presented. These are: 1) identify the big idea to be explored, 2) recognize the multiple perspectives needed for a more complete story, 3) locate qualifying texts, and 4) select texts to be included. Each step is demonstrated with three controversial topics in the elementary social studies curriculum: family (Kindergarten-1), civil rights (grades 2-3), and slavery (grades 4-5) and resources are provided for locating texts. The authors illustrate the importance of developing text sets that include multiple perspectives, particularly those lesser-known stories of historical events or themes, to serve as windows or mirrors for children in developing historical content knowledge.

1. Reason as the Source of Knowledge For medieval men, the existence of a personal and acting God was beyond any doubt. They were convinced that God intervenes into and interferes with the course of the world. The acting of God was a main factor for the explanation of natural phenomena. But with the passing of time, the understanding of nature improved and more and more phenomena could be explained by appeal to reason only and without recourse to actions of God. It became the general opinion that natural phenomena are subject to invariable natural laws. This clear departure from the God‐related understanding of nature happened when modern philosophy emerged in the 17th and 18th century. This modern philosophy saw nature as a mechanic construction. One of the leading philosophers of that period, Rene Descartes, argued that the laws of mechanics are the laws of nature. Descartes, the founder of rationalistic philosophy, was no atheist, but when he referred to God, it was only to become sure that what is clear (and rational) is also true.

Discusses James Buchanan′s contribution to the important topic of cost‐containment in the area of health care. Historical and ideational in its thrust, it seeks also to make a more general contribution by showing how the methodology of public choice can be applied to a specific issue in economic and social policy. Examines the precise body of theory which Buchanan brings to bear when attempting a politico‐economic calculus of consent. Considers the causes of the rise in the cost of health and assesses Buchanan′s anxieties in respect of the burden. Discusses Buchanan′s solutions and explores alternatives to the options he endorses. Concludes that Buchanan′s answers may not appeal to all readers, but they are a fruitful area of research and speculation.

What are the reasons for writing this paper? The purpose of this paper is to make the case for liberty, and free enterprise, against the criticisms of this system. Specifically, the present essay is an attempt to criticize the case for inheritance taxation. This is made by many, but the author focuses on James Buchanan's contribution to this support for socialism. The author does so because James Buchanan is widely known as a champion of capitalism and free markets, and he is nothing of the sort, at least in this one case.

The approach used in this paper is to quote widely from the adherents of inheritance taxes, and then to show the flaws in the cases they offer in support of this system.

The finding is that none of the arguments offered on behalf of inheritance taxation have been shown to be valid. There are flaws in all of them. This, of course, does not imply no such arguments can be shown to be successful; only that the ones herein cited do not justify this market interference.

Why do entrepreneurs engage in entrepreneurship? For a whole host of reasons, surely; these might in the extreme be as different as there are different entrepreneurs. But one motivation, certainly an important one, likely to be felt by most entrepreneurs, is to leave a bequest upon demise, so that one's heirs and loved ones may share in the fruits of one's entrepreneurial activities. Thus, taxes on inheritances, let alone those approaching the 100 percent level, must be anathema to at least most if not all entrepreneurial activities. The present paper makes the case against such attacks on wealth, bequests, inheritances.

To the best of the author's knowledge, although there are of course defenses of bequests, and critiques of Buchanan on other matters, there are no criticisms of this Nobel prize winning economist on this particular issue.

Wicksell's contributions to welfare economics are viewed as largely aligned with Pareto efficiency and James Buchanan's work in public choice. This conflicts with the Scandinavian representation of Wicksell as the forefather of the modern Swedish socialist economy. The purpose of this paper is to examine Wicksell's approach to economics, particularly his understanding of “justice” as a way to understanding the evolution of two such divergent traditions.

Original academic and popular press writings, as well as archival materials, are used to examine Wicksell's economic philosophy and his position on key aspects of welfare economics, including the relative importance of allocation versus distribution in policy decision making. His influence on the American public choice tradition and Swedish welfare economics is examined.

Both the public choice and Swedish welfare traditions based on Wicksell's justice represent overly simplistic interpretations and fail to explain how Wicksell could have such a significant impact on the development of two such divergent approaches to public economics.

Wicksell's strong association with Pareto efficiency and the public choice school is unfortunate because de‐emphasizes the importance Wicksell placed on distributional considerations and overly simplifies his use of the term “justice.” Similarly, the Swedish economists failed to appreciate efficiency arguments and chose instead to emphasize Wicksell's distributional concerns. This paper sheds light on where the misapprehension arose and how it can be better understood.

This work of imaginative splendour is the product, in the first place, of Israel Kirzner's magnificient effort in designing, directing and editing a symposium in honour of Ludwig von Mises. Its contents illustrate the presence still of giants in our profession: Lachmann with fifty years of fame; James Buchanan and Stephen Littlechild who lead the van of to‐day's subjectivism. The level of excellence is carried down the list by brilliant minds: Stephan Boehm, Mario Rizzo, Lawrence White, Brian Loasby and many others.

Begins by considering whether the economic theory of the supply, nature and demand for biographies developed by James M. Buchanan and Robert Tollison might apply to this autobiography. Outlines Tisdell’s experiences in his pre‐school years (1939‐1945), at school (1946‐1956) and as a university student (1957‐1963). Covers the period of his first appointment as a temporary lecturer at the Australian National University (1964) and of his postdoctoral travelling scholarship (1965) which took him to Princeton and Stanford and the period of his employment from 1966 onwards. His family and its history are given particular attention.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the full opportunity cost of population policies by contrasting standard models of optimal population, which consider individuals to be homogeneous laborers, with a view that considers individuals' capacity for entrepreneurship. This paper therefore examines this relationship between population and economic growth with entrepreneurship considered.

The paper draws on James Buchanan's dichotomy of the organismic theory of government finance vs the individualistic theory and applies this dichotomy to population planning. This framework reveals entrepreneurial capacity is only compatible with the open-ended individualistic view. Lastly, the paper utilizes considers the number of potential entrepreneurs lost to China's one child policy and considers the case of Jack Ma as a concrete example of the potential opportunity cost of policies which seek to curb population growth.

The analysis shows it is impossible for either natural scientists or economists to determine a welfare-enhancing population policy. Creative and entrepreneurial individuals contribute to the economy in ways not captured by standard models. The implication is policies seeking to curb population growth may inhibit economic growth by reducing potential entrepreneurs. Politicians cannot measure the opportunity cost of forgone entrepreneurs, and therefore the costs of such policies are unseen.

While economists have examined the potential gains from creativity, this contribution is unique in that it highlights the inherent open-endedness involved in entrepreneurship means the opportunity cost of a forgone individual cannot be know because market conditions created by entrepreneurs do not exist absent the entrepreneurs.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the impact of Baumol’s work on entrepreneurship has had on framing the economic development puzzle.

In many ways, the intuition behind the paper is straightforward. Entrepreneurs allocate their time and attention based on the relative payoffs they face in any given social setting. If the institutional environment rewards productive entrepreneurship, then the time and attention of entrepreneurial actors in the economy will be directed toward realizing the gains from trade and the gains from innovation. If, on the other hand, there are greater returns from the allocation of that time and attention toward rent-seeking and even criminal activity, alert individuals will respond to those incentives accordingly. The simplicity of the point being made is part of the brilliance in Baumol’s article. As with other classics in economics, once stated the proposition seems to be so basic it is amazing that others did not put it that way beforehand.

It has been 25 years since Baumol published his paper in the Journal of Political Economy, and as pointed out, it has had a significant scientific impact. But to put things in perspective, James Buchanan’s “An economic theory of clubs” published in 1965 has accumulated roughly 3,500 citations, F.A. Hayek’s “The use of knowledge in society,” published in 1945 has over 12,000, and Ronald Coase’s “The problem of social cost” published in 1960 has over 28,000 citations. So Baumol’s paper would put him in rather elite company. The great strength of the paper is to focus the attention on the relative payoffs of productive, unproductive and destructive entrepreneurial activity. But one of the most significant disappointments of the subsequent history of this paper is a methodological one. The comparative case study approach that Baumol employed did not result in a renewed appreciation for narrative forms of empirical research in political economy. It could legitimately be argued that the sort of questions about the fundamental institutional causes of economic growth and development can only be captured with these more historical methods. Attempts to force fit this analysis into a set of methodological tools which have already revealed themselves to be inadequate to do justice of the role of institutions and disregard the underlying cultural norms and beliefs that characterize human sociability.

In this paper, the authors will focus on the contribution made by Baumol’s 1990 paper on the field of comparative political economy, and in particular on the literature on transitional political economy. Section 2 places Baumol’s argument in the context of the failure of neoclassical growth theory. Section 3, the authors argue that although the Baumol framing was an improvement over the old comparative economic systems literature, contemporary transitional political economists have failed to fully realize the implications of the institutional revolution. They have therefore been unable to understand the causes of the heterogeneity of outcomes among those countries that transitioned from communism to the market economy in the 1990s. In Section 4, the authors argue that the political economy of transition will gain from a more sophisticated view of the economic process of the market economy, an appreciation of the entrepreneurial function, and a deeper understanding of the role of formal and informal institutions and their effect on entrepreneurship. The authors will illustrate the point with some examples from the recent history of the Russian political and economic transition. Credible commitment problems and the deficiencies of the institutional reforms of the early 1990s were responsible for the failure of reallocating the entrepreneurial talent that existed in the Soviet economy to productive economic activities. The framework can therefore be used to solve the puzzle of why the announced liberalization of Russian markets and privatization of previously state-owned resources led to economic stagnation, the growth of black markets, and the rise of organized crime, instead of economic development through the operations of smoothly operating markets. Section 5 briefly concludes.

A reconsideration of some Austrian work in public finance analysis that is based on a positive theory of the state and its relationship with the market economy is offered. The contributions of some prominent Austrian economists are considered, and how they relate to contemporary thinking in public finance. The two central paradigms of the tax state and entrepreneurship are explored.