William A. Niskanen

William A. Niskanen (actually: William Arthur Niskanen, born March 13, 1933 Bend, † October 26, 2011 in Washington, DC) was an American professor of economics and chairman of the Cato Institute.

Career

Niskanen concluded in 1954 graduated from Harvard University with a BA from. His economics graduate studies, he graduated from the University of Chicago, where he studied with Milton Friedman, who counts as well as other academic teachers Niskanens of the founders of the Chicago School of Economics. Niskanen earned his M. A. 1955 and in 1962 received his doctorate based on a dissertation on the economics of the sale of alcoholic beverages.

Work

As representatives of the economic theory of bureaucracy, he developed and published in 1968, the so-called budget maximization theory. Their key message is that the interest of a bureaucracy is to maximize their budget, because all the other dimensions of benefit depend therefrom.

Writings

• Bureaucracy and Representative Government, 1968