Mancur Olson

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Mancur Olson bigraphy, stories - Economists

Mancur Olson : biography

January 22, 1932 – February 19, 1998

Mancur Lloyd Olson, Jr. (The Economic Journal, Vol. 109, No. 456, Features (Jun., 1999), pp. F445 or ; January 22, 1932 – February 19, 1998) was a leading American economist and social scientist. From 1967 until his death in 1998 Olson was a Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland, College Park. Among other areas, he made contributions to institutional economics on the role of private property, taxation, public goods, collective action and contract rights in economic development. Olson focused on the logical basis of interest group membership and participation. The reigning political theories of his day granted groups an almost primordial status. Some appealed to a natural human instinct for herding, others ascribed the formation of groups that are rooted in kinship to the process of modernization. Olson offered a radically different account of the logical basis of organized collective action.

Academic work

In his first book, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (1965), he theorized that “only a separate and ‘selective’ incentive will stimulate a rational individual in a latent group to act in a group-oriented way”; that is, members of a large group will not act in the group’s common interest unless motivated by personal gains (economic, social, etc.). He specifically distinguishes between large and small groups, the latter of which can act simply on a shared objective. Large groups, however, will not form or work towards a shared objective unless individual members are sufficiently motivated.Mancur Olson, Jr., 1965, 2nd ed., 1971. The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups, Harvard University Press, , , and .

The Rise and Decline of Nations The Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation, and Social Rigidities Power and Prosperity Power and Prosperity: Outgrowing Communist and Capitalist Dictatorships Foreign Affairs

To honor Olson’s many contributions to the fields of Economics and Political Science, the American Political Science Association introduced the Olson Award to the best PhD dissertation in Political Economy.http://www.apsanet.org/~polecon/awards.html#Past%20Winners In 2013 the University of Maryland announced the creation of a new endowed professorship "The Mancur Olson Professor of Economics". http://www.econ.umd.edu/about/news/97Maryland Professor of Economics Peter Murrell was appointed as the first Mancur Olson Professor.