Political Economy
Political Institutions and Organizations
American Politics
Federalism

Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution
Professor of Economics (by courtsey)
Senior Fellow, Stanford Center for International Development, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy
           Research (by courtsey)
Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (by courtsey)

• James L. Barr Memorial Award for Public Economics., 1981.
• Duncan Black Prize for the best paper, Public Choice, 1981 (with Kenneth A. Shepsle).
• Heinz Eulau Award for the best paper of the year in the American Political Science Review, 1987 (with Kenneth A. Shepsle).
• Fellow, Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, CA, 1993-1994.
• Mary Parker Follett Prize for the best paper in politics and history, 1994 (with Charles Stewart) and 1998.
• Frankin L. Burdette Pi Sigma Alpha Award for the best paper presented at the 1994 American Political Science Association Meeting (with Kenneth Schultz).
• Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Science, 1996-present.
• Sage Award for best paper in the area of comparative politics presented at the annual meetings of the American Political Science Association, 2000 (with Alberto Diaz-Cayeros and Beatriz Magaloni).
• Distinguished Scholar Award in Public Policy, Martin School of Public Policy, University of Kentucky, 2001.
• William H. Riker Prize and Lecture for scholarly achievement in scientific study of politics, 2006
• James M. Buchanan Lecture, George Mason University, November 11, 2008.
• Herbert Simon Award for outstanding contributions to the scientific study of the bureaucracy, April 2010.
• "President-Elect, International Society for the New Institutional Economics" (ISNIE), 2010-11.

• Member, National Academy of Sciences, 2011-present
  

PS 362, "New Economics of Organization for Political Science," Spring 2010

PS331, "High Stakes Politics," Spring 2010

Caltech Rules (for writing social science papers)

Books and edited collections

Symposium on: Institutions, Economics, and the Ancient Mediterranean World (editor, with Ian Morris), Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics Vol 160, No 4. (2004): 702-85.

Preferences and Situations: Points of Contact between Historical and Rational Choice Institutionalisms(editor, with Ira Katznelson). (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2005.)

Handbook Political Economy (editor, with Donald Wittman) (New York: Oxford University Press, August 2006).

Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual Framework For Interpreting Recorded Human History (with Douglass C. North and John Joseph Wallis). (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

Political Economy of South Korea’s Transition, 1960-2009 (with Jongryn Mo). Korean Development Institution, Seoul, Korea; and Development Institute, Harvard University. To be submitted to
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press in March, 2010.

Limited Access Orders: Rethinking the Problems of Development and Violence (with Douglass C. North, John Joseph Wallis, and Steven B. Webb). (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming.)

Selected Papers

"The Democratic Advantage: The Institutional Sources of State Power in International Competition" (with Kenneth A. Schultz). International Organization (Winter, 2003) 57: 3-42.

"The Positive Political Theory of Legislative History: New Perspectives on the 1964 Civil Rights Act and its Interpretation (with Daniel Rodriguez). University of Pennsylvania Law Review (April, 2003) 151 (4): 1417-1542.

“Constructing Self-Enforcing Democracy in Spain,” Joe Oppenheimer and Irwin Morris, eds., From Anarchy to Democracy (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004).

“The Performance and Stability of Federalism: An Institutional Perspective” in Claude Menard and Mary Shirley, eds., Handbook of the New Institutional Economics. (Springer-Verglag, 2005).

“Caught in the Middle: The President, Congress, And the Political-Bureaucratic System,” in Joel Aberbach and Mark Peterson, eds., The Executive Branch and American Democracy. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005)

“Persuasion, Preference Change, and Critical Junctures: The Microfoundations of a Macroscopic Concept,” in Ira Katznelson and Barry R. Weingast, eds., Preferences and Situations: Points of Contact between Historical and Rational Choice Institutionalisms (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2005.)

"Self-Enforcing Federalism," (with Rui J.P. de Figueiredo, Jr.). Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization. (April, 2005) 21: 103-35.

.“An Equilibrium Alternative to the Study of Culture” (with David D. Laitin), The Good Society 2006. 15(1): 15-20.

"Regional Decentralization and Fiscal Incentives: Federalism, Chinese Style," (with Hehui Jin and Yingyi Qian) Journal of Public Economics 89 (2005): 1719-42.

"The Constitutional Dilemma of Economic Liberty" Journal of Economic Perspectives 19(3) (2005): 89-108

"The Paradox of Expansionist Judicial Statutory Interpretations" (with Daniel B. Rodriguez) Northwestern University Law Review 101 (forthcoming, Fall 2006).

"Conditions for Judicial Independence" Published under "McNollgast" (With Mathew D. McCubbins and Roger Noll) Journal of Contemporary Legal Issues (forthcoming, 2006).

"Rationality, Inaccurate Mental Models, and Self-Confirming Equilibrium: A New Understanding of the American Revolution" (with Rui J.P. de Figueiredo, Jr., and Jack Rakove) Journal of Theoretical Politics (forthcoming).

"The New Separation of Powers Approach to American Politics" (with Rui J.P. de Figueiredo, Jr., and Tonja Jacobi) in Barry R. Weingast and Donald Wittman, eds., Handbook of Political Economy. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006).

"The Political Economy Of Law: Decision-Making By Judicial, Legislative, Executive and Administrative Agencies" By McNollgast, in  A. Mitchell Polinsky and Stephen Shavel, eds., Law and Economics Handbook (North Holland, forthcoming, 2007).

"Crisis Bureaucracy: Homeland Security and the Political Design of Legal Mandates," (with Dara Kay Cohen and Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar),Stanford Law Review 59 (forthcoming, 2007).

“Constructing Self-Enforcing Federalism in the Early United States and Modern Russia (with Rui J. P. de Figueiredo, Jr., and Michael McFaul) Publius: The Journal of Federalism (2007) 37(2): 160-189.

“The Paradox of Expansionist Judicial Statutory Interpretations” (with Daniel B. Rodriguez) Northwestern University Law Review (2007) 101(3): 1207-55.

“Dysfunctional or Optimal Institutions?: State Debt Limitations, the Structure of State and Local Governments, and the Finance of American Infrastructure,” (with John Joseph Wallis), in Elizabeth Garrett, Elizabeth Graddy and Howell Jackson, eds., Fiscal Challenges: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Budget Policy. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).

"Administrative Law Agonistes” (McNollgast and Daniel B. Rodriguez), Columbia Law Review Sidebar (April 21, 2008) 108: 15-22. http://www.clrsidebar.org/replies/McNollgast_Rodriguez_Administrative

“The Political-Economy of Law” written by "McNollgast" (with Mathew D. McCubbins and Roger Noll), in A. Mitchell Polinsky and Stephen Shavel, eds., Law and Economics Handbook (North Holland, 2008).

“Second Generation Fiscal Federalism: The Implications of Fiscal Incentives” Journal of Urban Economics (2009, forthcoming).

“Why Developing Countries Prove So Resistant to the Rule of Law,” in Robert L. Nelson, ed., Global Perspectives on the Rule of Law. (New York: Routledge, 2009.)

“Violence and the Rise of Open Access Orders” (with Douglass C. North and John Joseph Wallis), Journal of Democracy (January 2009) 20: 55-68.

“Second Generation Fiscal Federalism: The Implications of Fiscal Incentives” Journal of Urban
Economics (May 2009) 65.

“Agenda Control in Congress: Evidence from Cut Point Estimates and Ideal Point Uncertainty” (with Edward H. Stiglitz) Legislative Studies Quarterly (2010)  35(2): 157-85.

“The Rule of Law Unplugged” (with Mathew D. McCubbins and Daniel B. Rodriguez) in Emory Law
Journal (forthcoming, 2010).

“A Theory of the Politically Independent Judiciary” (with Rebecca Bill-Chavez and John A. Ferejohn), in  Gretchen Helmke and Julio Rios-Figueroa, eds., Courts in Latin America. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011)

“The Constitutional Choices of 1787 and Their Consequences” (with Sonia Mittal and Jack N. Rakove), in Douglas Irwin and Richard Sylla, eds., Founding Choices: American Economic Policy in the 1790s. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011.)

“Constitutional Stability and the Deferential Court” (with Sonia Mittal). University of Pennsylvania Constitutional Law Journal (forthcoming, 2011).

Why So Much Stability?: Majority Voting, Legislative Institutions, and Gordon Tullock” (with Kenneth A. Shepsle) Public Choice (forthcoming, 2011).

"What is Law? A Coordination Model of the Characteristics of Legal Order" (with Gillian K. Hadfield) Journal of Legal Analysis (forthcoming).

"Self-Enforcing Constitutions: With An Application to Democratic Stability in America's First Century" (with Sonia Mittal). Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization (forthcoming).

Selected Working Papers
(downloadable)

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"Biological Institutions: The Political Science of Animal Cooperation" (with Erol Akçay, Joan Roughgarden, James Fearon, John Ferejohn, et al., Working Paper, May 2010.

“Limited Access Orders: Rethinking the Problems of Development and Violence” (with Douglass C. North, John Joseph Wallis, and Steven B. Webb). Working Paper, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, June 2010.

"Self-Enforcing Consititutions: With An Application to Democratic Stability in America's First Century," (with Sonia Mittal). Working Paper, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, November 2010.

"Democratization and Countermajoritarian Institutions: The Role of Power and Constitutional Design In Self-Enforcing Democracy" (with Susan Alberts and Chris Warshaw). Working Paper, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, June 2010.

“Limited Access Orders in the Developing World: A New Approach to the Problems of Development” (with Douglass C. North, John Joseph Wallis, and Steven B. Webb). Policy Research Working Paper 4359, World Bank, Washington, DC, September 2007.

"Parties, Committees, and Pivots: A Reassessment of the Literature on Congressional Organization" (with
David W. Rohde and Edward H. Stiglitz), Working Paper, August 2008.

"The Untold Story of the 1964 Civil Rights Act: How the GOP Helped the Democrats Destroy the Solid South" (with Daniel B. Rodriguez), Working Paper, Hoover Institution, Stanford University (2006).

"Second Generation Fiscal Federalism: Implications for Decentralized Democratic Governance and Economic Development," Working Paper, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, May 2006.

"Tragic Brilliance: Equilibrium Party Hegemony in Mexico," (with Alberto Diaz-Cayeros and Beatriz Magaloni), Working Paper, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, February 2006.

"The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850: Symbolic Gesture or Rational Guarantee?" (with Jeffrey Rogers Hummel), Working Paper, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, January 2006.

"Equilibrium Impotence: Why the States and Not the American National Government Financed Infrastructure Investment in the Antebellum Era," (with John Wallis), Working Paper, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, October 2005.

"Ideas, Interest, and Credible Commitments in the American Revolution," (with Jack Rakove and Andrew R. Rutten), Working Paper, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, February 2000.

"Strategically Speaking: A New Analysis of Presidents Going Public," (with Joshua D. Clinton, David E. Lewis and Stephanie R. Cellini) Working Paper, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, July 2004.

"Vicious Cycles: Endogenous Political Extremism and Political Violence," (with Rui J.P. de Figueiredo, Jr.), Working Paper, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, May 2001.

Civil War Project

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Please click here for Works on American Political History, including my Civil War Project.


University Service

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Vice Chair, Department of Political Science, 1995-96
Chair, Department of Political Science, 1996-2001
Provost's Housing Committee, 1999-2000
Appointments and Promotions Committee, School of Humanities and Sciences, 2000-01
Faculty Senate, 2000-01 (Member, Committee on Committees)
University Advisory Board, 2002-03
Member, Policy and Planning Advisory Committee, School of Humanities and Sciences, 2005-2007