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Topic: Mancur Olson

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	"How to Grow" by Kenneth Arrow
		Olson does not consider that free markets are the entire solution to the problems of growth, though of course their vitality is a necessary condition.
		Olson attributes the rapid postwar growth of the last two states to the fact that markets of all kinds could operate freely and reliably and that the institutions representing old special interests had been destroyed by the defeat.
		Olson several times pointed out that markets involving time and uncertainty are especially important for growth, e.g., a commitment that the proceeds of an investment in fixed capital would remain in the hands of the investor.
	www.washingtonmonthly.com /books/2000/0005.arrow.html (1069 words)

	Mancur Olson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Olson focused on the logical basis of interest group membership and participation.
		Olson argued that a "roving bandit" (under anarchy) has an incentive only to steal and destroy, whilst a "stationary bandit" (a tyrant) has an incentive to encourage a degree of economic success, since he will expect to be in power long enough to take a share of it.
		Olson saw in the move from roving bandits to stationary bandits the seeds of civilization, paving the way for democracy, which improves incentives for good government by more closely aligning it with the wishes of the population.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Mancur_Olson (532 words)

	IRIS Center at the University of Maryland
		Mancur Olson (1932-1998), the founder of the IRIS Center, was one of the most influential political economists of the late twentieth century.
		Mancur (pronounced MAN-SOOR) received his master’s degree in Economics at Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.
		Mancur Olson’s commitment to the project of supporting institutional reform led him to establish the IRIS Center, as a locus of theoretical and applied research and advisory assistance promoting economic development.
	www.iris.umd.edu /StaticReader.aspx/About_IRIS/History/Mancur_Olson.htm (430 words)

	arc002
		Mancur Olson's work so much changed the field of economics that the true significance of that work can only be appreciated by understanding what comprised economics before Mancur's influence was felt.
		Mancur was one of a handful of scholars who ensured that politics became part of economic thinking, hence changing the very foundations of his discipline.
		Mancur argued that as these groups lobbied for policies that were to the detriment of the economy as a whole, stable societies would grow more slowly than those affected by upheaval.
	www.unipv.it /websiep/arc002.htm (662 words)

	Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis - The Region - Remembering Olson and Schultz (June 1998) (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-17)
		Olson was chair and principal investigator at the Center on Institutional Reform and the Informal Sector, and distinguished professor of economics at the University of Maryland at College Park at the time of his death, and Schultz was professor of economics and Charles L. Hutchinson distinguished service professor at the University of Chicago.
		Years later, Mancur Olson was the first to refer to my work and that of my colleagues as the "Virginia school," to distinguish it, properly so, from the "Chicago school" and other strands of normative discourse in political economy.
		Mancur Olson had a rare ability to take highly abstract but ultimately simple ideas and to apply these ideas to the reality of economic and political development.
	woodrow.mpls.frb.fed.us /pubs/region/98-06/obits.cfm?js=0 (933 words)

	Mancur Olson Professorship in the World Economy" Established - News (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-17)
		A tribute to Mancur Olson, distinguished university professor and director of the Institutional Reform and the Informal Sector (IRIS) Project, the Professorship will attract a world-renowned scholar to continue Dr. Olson’s work in the exploration of markets and institutions in the world economy.
		Mancur Olson was one of the leading scholars in collective choice and the role of institutions and public policy on the economy.
		Mancur Olson made lasting contributions to his profession, to the Department of Economics and to the university.
	www.bsos.umd.edu /pship.html (232 words)

	Finance & Development, December 2000 - Book reviews
		Olson's first insight is that individuals who hold power have an all-encompassing interest in the prosperity of the economy.
		Olson draws on earlier work on the logic of collective action to explain both the collapse of the Soviet Union and the difficult transition of its constituent states to market economies.
		Olson offers one ray of hope—that, as the public becomes more knowledgeable, special interest groups will lose their ability to subvert the interests of the larger society.
	www.imf.org /external/pubs/ft/fandd/2000/12/books.htm (2783 words)

	Mancur Olson
		The late Mancur Olson summed up his life’s work in this short but remarkably insightful book, in which he applies familiar themes from his past work to the late communist world, to the transition from communism to markets, and to the poverty of developing countries.
		Olson cites empirical work on developing countries that seems to support his hypothesis that long-lived autocracies perform better than short-lived ones.
		Olson offers one ray of light in saying that the progress of knowledge could slowly educate the public and break the hold of the interest groups.
	www.worldbank.org /html/prddr/trans/May-Aug2000/pg50.htm (710 words)

	The Rise and Decline of Nations by Mancur Olson (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-17)
		Mancur Olson along with Milton Friedman and Michael Porter may well be one of the key figures of late 20th century economics.
		This seems to be a cultural problem and Olson sheds light on the uncomfortable dual nature of economic liberalism.
		Unfortunately for Olson it is still heretical to suggest that sociological observation or any of the useful established work in psychology has any relevence to economics.
	www1.dragonet.es /users/markbcki/olson.htm (547 words)

	ECONIS Select: Mancur Olson's Hypothese (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-17)
		Mancur Olson Anmerkung: über: Olson, Mancur: The rise and decline of nations.
		Aufsatz: On the rise and decline of nations / Charles P. Kindleberger Anmerkung: über: Olson, Mancur: The rise and decline of nations [New Haven, London 1982] In: International studies quarterly : the journal of the International Studies Association.
		Aufsatz: Interest associations and economic growth : a critique of Mancur Olson's Rise and decline of nations / Brigitte Unger and Frans van Waarden Anmerkung: Rezension von: The rise and decline of nations : economic growth, stagflation, and social rigidities.
	www.uni-kiel.de /ifw/zbw/dienstleist/econselect/fl_man.htm (1872 words)

	Logic of Collective Action
		Olson says, "The difficulty of analyzing the relationship between group size and the behavior of the individual in the group is due partly to the fact that each individual in a group may place a different value upon the collective good wanted by his group" (22).
		According to Olson, when a group or organization has a lot of members, individual members might feel as though their participation will not affect the group, and will still expect to reap the benefits, whether or not they make a contribution.
		Olson addresses the concept of pluralism or a greater role of groups in society.
	web.syr.edu /~taosbour/olson.html (698 words)

	KATHLEEN W
		One possible explanation for this discrepancy lies in Mancur Olson’s “Logic of Collective Action.” According to Olson, industry-level government assistance, such as trade protection, is a public good for the firms in an industry and lobbying for such assistance by firms is a form of collective action subject to the “Free Rider” Problem.
		Olson’s conclusions are theoretically evaluated by presenting a mathematical model of collective action by firms for industry-level political benefits.
		Olson’s theory then is empirically evaluated by employing a unique data set on Political Action Committees (PACs) constructed from Federal Election Commission data for the 1987-88 election cycle.
	www.macalester.edu /~kozlowski/cv.htm (842 words)

	Amazon.ca: Collective Choice : Essays in Honor of MANCUR OLSON: Books: Jac C. Heckelman,Dennis Coates (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-17)
		Mancur Olson wrote important books in the area of Collective Choice and is considered one of the founding fathers of Public Choice as a field of economics.
		Each of the chapters is a new piece of scholarship inspired by and intended to honor Mancur Olson, and extend his influence to another generation of Collective Choice scholars and researchers.
		Mancur Olson Jr is probably the only economist to have published two sole-authored books considered seminal in the field of public choice (see Stretton and Orchard's (Stretton and Orchard 1994) overview of the field, chapter 2). Read the first page
	www.amazon.ca /Collective-Choice-Essays-Honor-MANCUR/dp/354000341X (528 words)

	Amazon.com: The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups, Second printing with new preface and ... (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-17)
		Olson finds that, through the lens of his theory of groups, it is hard to believe that this class conflict could provide the "motive power" for all social change throughout human history.
		Olson argues that due to the logic of collective action there is no guarantee, and in fact it is highly improbable, that the large group will be able to gain enough support to defeat the proposed policy of the smaller, more organized group.
		Olson, in this work, introduced the concept of collective action problems: that the costs imposed on individuals for actions beneficial to a group may be too great, and the rewards to them too small, to induce them to act on behalf of the group.
	www.amazon.com /Logic-Collective-Action-printing-appendix/dp/0674537513 (2692 words)

	research on institutional sclerosis (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-17)
		Mancur Olson's institutional sclerosis hypothesis may be evident in the effects of interest groups on investment in physical capital.
		To test this proposition, we use cross sectional data on 42 countries for which information on the number of interest groups is available to estimate the effect of those groups on the share of GDP that goes into physical investment.
		Empirical studies designed to test Olson's (1982) theory of institutional sclerosis are typically forced to rely upon proxies to measure the ability of special interest groups to engage in redistributive activities, which in turn are expected to hinder economic growth.
	www.wfu.edu /~heckeljc/papers/Olson.html (436 words)

	Mancur Olson - The Logic of Collective Action
		Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1971.
		Olson’s book was directed against the conception about group behavior and collective action, which was prevailing in his time, according to which people would instinctively or naturally act on common interests, and that inaction need to be explained.
		To quote Olson, "what needs to be known, in the words of the German sociologist Georg Simmel, is ‘the bearing which the number of sociated individuals has upon the form of social life’." [21]
	www.geocities.com /Athens/Atlantis/1747/Works/ols.htm (1300 words)

	Power and Prosperity, by Mancur Olson
		Olson, who died as he was finishing this book, wrote The Logic of Collective Action, apparently a seminal book on how interest groups form.
		One caveat is that, since Olson is an economist, everything is treated as an economics problem (When all you've got is a hammer...).
		Olson's account of how a society can progress towards democracy, explained solely in terms of individuals' self-interest, is compelling.
	www.nehrlich.com /book/powerandprosperity.html (799 words)

	book review article
		Olson says the collapse of the Soviet Union was in part due to a lack of revenue.
		Olson says the flaws of democracy can be fixed with knowledge and education.
		Olson concludes that ultimately dictatorships and sclerotic activities in democracies must be fought with economic knowledge.
	goodtrue.tripod.com /olson.htm (1140 words)

	Bruno Faidutti
		Olson étudiait alors la participation individuelle aux mouvements sociaux, notamment de type syndical, et expliquait sa faiblesse par les comportements de "passagers clandestins".
		In 1965, in The Logic of Collective Action, Mancur Olson formalized what he called the paradox of collective action, and which is, in a way, a generalization of the prisonner's dilemma.
		The Olson paradox is often used in the studies of local or workers collective action, it could also apply to today's international problems, especially when environmental problems.
	www.faidutti.com /index.php?Module=mesjeux&id=339&fichier=216 (424 words)

	The Logic of Collective Action
		Olson supports his theory with citing evidence from Marxism, corporations, pressure groups, and labor unions and their historical relevance.
		In reference to the taxonomy of groups, Olson introduces strategic interaction, when members of an organization are concerned about the reactions of other members to their actions.
		Olson belies that the right to work argument is "based on profit motive...[and] would bring about the death of the trade union" (88).
	web.syr.edu /~bllichte/review1.html (1331 words)

	Economic focus: Mancur Olson, anarchy and poverty
		Through history, Olson observes, it has been better to live under political tyranny than to be subject to the depredations of roving bands of warrior-thieves.
		The answer, Olson explains, is that the tyrant has a stake, an “encompassing interest”, in the domain he is exploiting: if it prospers, he can extract more for himself in taxes and other ways.
		Historically, Olson argues, the dispersal of political power and the emergence of representative government have often been the trigger for faster economic growth.
	www.humboldt.edu /~ee3/econ306/olson.html (983 words)

	In Memory of Mancur Olson: Archive Entry From Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal
		"[Mancur] Olson argued persuasively that underdevelopment reflects,not the absence of markets generally, but rather the absence of particular types of markets--namely, "socially contrived" or "property-rights-intensive" markets that arise and flower only with the help of appropriate, government-provided legal institutions...
		In a continuum from bad to worse--from corrupt officials and inadequate courts, to laws so dysfunctional that many or most people are chased into the informal sector, to the arbitrary confiscations of kleptocratic misrule, to the chaos of Hobbesian anarchy--the poorer countries are all plagued by the insufficient protection of property and contract rights.
		I was privileged to have Mancur for micro and public choice at UMd.
	www.j-bradford-delong.net /movable_type/archives/000339.html (995 words)

	Interest Associations and Economic Growth. A Critique of Mancur Olson's `Rise and Decline of Nations'
		The paper contradicts the thesis of Mancur Olson presented in `The Rise and Decline of Nations', using empirical evidence from studies on business interest associations and sectoral corporatism.
		We argue first that, unlike Olson assumes, selfish interest associations are not necessarily detrimental to economic performance and growth.
		Second, again in contradiction to Olson, it is not true that the more associations exist, the greater their political influence will be and hence the more they will tend to pervert public policy.
	ideas.repec.org /p/cpr/ceprdp/894.html (665 words)

	Review of The Logic of Collective Action by Mancur Olson
		As an economist, Olson investigates the economic incentives and disincentives for group formation, especially political and trade organizations.
		Olson discounts that claim though, stating that forced unionization is no different that forcing someone to be subject to military draft or to pay taxes for public education.
		In fact, Olson believes that the only way to oppose forced unionization is to claim unions “are so harmful, or ineffective, or unimportant that the country should not be concerned about their viability nor tolerant of their privileges” (p 90-91).
	www.brucesabin.com /logic_of_collective_action.html (931 words)

	A Tribute to Mancur Olson: 1932-1998 by Jonathan Rauch (printable version) (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-17)
		They have never claimed an economic founding father, but they ought to claim Mancur Olson, who died of a heart attack on Feb. 19 at age 66.
		Like father, like son: Olson was, he seemed to think, everybody's student.
		He kept his direct heartland manner to the end (he knew his way around the insides of a tractor), but when he got to talking about ideas he might ask leave to get up and pace while his mind spun like a flywheel and his eyes sparkled with the joy he took in rigorous argument.
	www.dlc.org /print.cfm?contentid=1617 (575 words)

	Amazon.com: Power and Prosperity: Outgrowing Communist and Capitalist Dictatorships: Books: Mancur Olson (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-17)
		Olson's invisible hand represents the unintentional good that even the most selfish regimes accidentally do for the public in the process of maximizing the good of the rulers.
		In the "Rise and Decline of Nations" Mancur Olson revealed the teacher in himself with a lucid readable account that left the mathematics in the footnotes.
		The "Rise and Decline of Nations", Mancur Olson's prior book for the greater public, is a hard act to follow, but that he does with this sequel, "Power and Prosperity." And how.
	www.amazon.com /Power-Prosperity-Outgrowing-Capitalist-Dictatorships/dp/0465051960 (2772 words)

	The Oil Drum \| Leadership, Activism, Mancur Olson, Groups, Localism, and Conferences... (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-17)
		If we wait for the federal government to do anything (as we have seen), it will be way too late because it will, at best, be terribly slow, deliberative, and incremental.
		Mancur Olson was right about a lot of things (and here's another good piece on his work as well), one of them being that large groups are problematic (think "herding cats") and are tough to get anything done in...the smaller the group the less likely free riders will exist, etc., etc.
		However, it is only when both of these parts form a cohesive whole will the voices be strong enough to actually change public policy...and we might have a chance of changing our policies in time to change the course of history, even just a little bit.
	www.theoildrum.com /classic/2005/08/leadership-activism-mancur-olson.html (687 words)

	Review of Mancur Olson's The Rise and Decline of Nations (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-17)
		This important book provides a strong argument that one of the causes of different economic growth rates in different countries is that events (such as military defeat) that sweep away large entrenched power structures make economies more efficient.
		Special interest groups can create significant obstacles to economic progress by negotiating special privileges (import restrictions or complex tax breaks to protect businesses, inflexible contracts to protect the wages of union members, etc).
		Olson makes a strong case that the agreements involved in most such privileges take significant time to adopt, and that apparent disasters that remove most such agreements can benefit a nation for significant periods of time.
	www.rahul.net /pcm/olson_review.html (149 words)

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