Robert Tollison | |
|---|---|
 1964 yearbook photo | |
| Born | 1942 |
| Died | October 24, 2016 |
| Nationality | American |
| Academic career | |
| Field | Economics, Public Choice |
| School or tradition | Public Choice school |
| Information at IDEAS / RePEc | |
Robert D. Tollison (1942–October 24, 2016) was an American economist who specialized in public choice theory.
A native of Spartanburg, South Carolina, Tollison attended local Wofford College where he earned an A.B. in business administration and economics in 1964. He completed an M.A. in economics at the University of Alabama a year later.[1] After completing his master's in Tuscaloosa, Tollison moved to Virginia to begin teaching at Longwood University, then called "Longwood College." Shortly thereafter he commenced work on his Ph.D. in economics at the University of Virginia. He finished his doctoral degree in 1969.[1]
Tollison's first academic position as a Ph.D. was at Cornell University, where he would teach from 1969 until 1973. He then took a job at Texas A&M University where he became the economics department head after a little more than a year. He held this position with Texas A&M until 1977 when, after having spent a year as a visiting professor at the University of Miami's law school, Tollison accepted a new post at Virginia Tech as professor in that school's economics department. Tollison left Virginia Tech in 1981 to work in various roles with the Federal Trade Commission until 1983.
After leaving the FTC, Tollison returned to academia, eventually teaching at Clemson University, George Mason University, the University of Mississippi,[2] Arizona State University, and Florida State University. He was on the editorial boards for the Journal of Sports Economics, Constitutional Political Economy,[3] and Public Choice.[4] He was on the board of advisors for the Independent Institute.
At the time of his death, he was Professor of Economics and BB&T Senior Fellow at Clemson University in Clemson, South Carolina.
Tollison's areas of particular interest included the economics of religion, history of economic thought, sports economics, antitrust theory, and tobacco policy. His textbook with Robert Ekelund, Economics, is now in its seventh edition.
According to a Libertarian Forum review of Tollison and Ekelund's Mercantilism as a Rent Seeking Society, a study of the political economy of mercantilism,
...using public choice analysis, Ekelund and Tollison assert that English mercantilism declined because the rise of parliamentary power raised the lobbying costs for monopoly privileges. As parliament refused to delegate its newly won powers to anybody, any prospective monopolist had to secure majorities in the legislature as well as the acquiescence of the king.... [T]he authors stress the similarity between mercantilism and present-day economic regulation, despite the changes in the political system.[5]
Tollison's The National Collegiate Athletic Association: A Study in Cartel Behavior, in addition to a number of journal articles on the economics of sports,[6][7] led to Tollison's work being frequently cited in the area of sports economics.[8]
Robert Tollison came to the attention of the tobacco industry in 1977 when he co-authored an article: "Rational Choice and the Taxation of Sin", in the Journal of Public Economics, attacking the way governments imposed "their moral code upon consumers of goods that are thought to be undesirable."[9] He was a professor of economics at Virginia Polytechnic at the time, and also the executive director of the Center for Study of Public Choice.
