Public Choice Theory

Public choice theory is the use of modern economic tools to study problems that traditionally are in the province of political science. From the perspective of political science, it is the subset of positive political theory that models voters, politicians, and bureaucrats as mainly self-interested. In particular, it studies such agents and their interactions in the social system either as such or under alternative constitutional rules. These can be represented in a number of ways, including standard constrained utility maximization, game theory, or decision theory. Public choice analysis has roots in positive analysis ("what is") but is often used for normative purposes ("what ought to be"), to identify a problem or suggest how a system could be improved by changes in constitutional rules, the subject of constitutional economics.

Public choice theory is closely related to social choice theory, a mathematical approach to aggregation of individual interests, welfares, or votes. Much early work had aspects of both, and both use the tools of economics and game theory. Since voter behavior influences the behavior of public officials, public choice theory often uses results from social choice theory. General treatments of public choice are classified as a subarea of public economics.