Buchanan, James McGill (1919-2013), an American economist, carried out studies concentrating on the noneconomic forces that affect government policy. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in economic sciences in 1986.
Buchanan was born in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, on Oct. 2, 1919. He received a bachelor’s degree from Middle Tennessee State Teachers College (now Middle Tennessee State University) in 1940 and a master’s degree from the University of Tennessee in 1941. Buchanan served in the United States Navy during World War II (1939-1945). He obtained his doctorate from the University of Chicago in 1948. He was professor at the University of Tennessee from 1948 to 1951, and at Florida State University from 1951 to 1956. From 1956 to 1968, he also taught at the University of California. He was distinguished professor of economics at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute from 1969 to 1983, when he became distinguished professor of economics at the George Mason University in Virginia. Buchanan also served as director of the Center for Study of Public Choice. His best-known book, which he wrote with Gordon Tullock, is The Calculus of Consent (1962). Buchanan died on Jan. 9, 2013.
