Dr. James M. Buchanan won the 1986 Nobel Prize in economics for his public choice theory of political decision making. The scholars at the James M. Buchanan Center for Political Economy, named in Dr. Buchanan's honor, apply scientific economic methods to the "public choice behavior" of voters, party leaders, and other politicians, lobbyists, and bureaucrats.

"Choice" is the act of selecting from among alternatives. "Public" refers to people. But people do not choose. Choices are made by individuals, and these may be "private" or "public." A person makes private choices as he goes about the ordinary business of living. He makes "public choices" when he selects among alternatives for others as well as for himself. Such choices become the objects of inquiry in Public Choice.

While traditional economic theory has been narrowly interpreted to include only the private choices of individuals in the market process, traditional political science has rarely analyzed individuals' choice behavior. Public Choice is the intersection of these two disciplines; the institutions are those of political science, and the method is that of economic theory.

Public Choice scholars are perhaps best characterized by their emphasis on comparative institutional analysis and, in particular, by their concentration on the necessary relationship between economic and political institutions. While many orthodox social scientists have inferred that governmental regulation may be substituted for the market process whenever imperfections are present in the latter, Public Choice students are unwilling to take such a logical leap. They are realists who do not view the government as necessarily performing less poorly than the market. Public Choice analysts share a lack of enthusiasm for, but not an unwillingness to turn, to government for the solution to innumerable problems. The realization is that markets are imperfect, but that alternative institutions (i.e., government) may also have defects.