Public choice's homeric hero: Gordon Tullock (1922-2014)

Gordon Tullock, who was born in 1922 in Rockford, Illinois gave the world public choice theory, the concept of rent seeking, and bioeconomics. In early 1943, he enrolled in his first economics class, taught by Henry Calvert Simons. But later in 1943, before formally finishing the class, he was drafted into the army and was assigned as a rifleman to the Ninth Infantry Division. He returned to Chicago early in 1946 and finished the requirements for the J.D. Fortunately for academic economics and public-choice theory, Gordon learned to read and write a little Chinese, took the Foreign Service Exam, and passed it on the first try. He was assigned to Tientsin, China, in 1947. The Foreign Service assigned him to do advanced study in Chinese back in the United States, after which he returned to China and later worked also in Korea and for the intelligence service in Washington. He resigned from the Foreign Service in 1956 and then knocked around, working several jobs. He has more than fourteen thousand citations in many fields in Google Scholar. He created a concept now called the 'Tullock Contest' as a way of understanding efficient rent seeking.

Duke Scholars

Author Michael C. Munger Political Science