American economist and political scientist (1932?1998)
Mancur Lloyd Olson Jr.
(
;
[2]
January 22, 1932 ? February 19, 1998) was an American
economist
and
political scientist
who taught at the
University of Maryland, College Park
. His most influential contributions were to
new institutional economics
, and focused on the role played by
private property
,
taxation
,
public goods
,
collective action
, and
contract
rights in
economic development
.
Early life and education
[
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]
Olson was born on January 22, 1932, in
Grand Forks, North Dakota
, to a family of
Norwegian
immigrants.
[2]
[3]
[4]
He grew up on a farm near
Buxton, North Dakota
, next to the state border with
Climax, Minnesota
.
[5]
Olson claimed that his given name, Mancur, was common throughout Scandinavian-immigrant communities in North America and was a variation of the Arabic name
Mansoor
.
[2]
[4]
Olson graduated from
North Dakota State University
in 1954, and was a
Rhodes Scholar
at
University College
,
Oxford
from 1954 to 1956, before earning a
PhD
in
economics
from
Harvard
in 1963.
[2]
He also served in the
U.S. Air Force
for two years from 1961 to 1963.
[5]
Career
[
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]
While serving in the U.S. Air Force, Olson became a lecturer in the Economics Department of the
United States Air Force Academy
from 1961 to 1963.
[2]
He then became an assistant professor at
Princeton University
in 1963.
[5]
[6]
Afterwards, he served as Deputy Assistant
Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare
for two years in
Washington, D.C.
In 1969, he joined the economics department of the
University of Maryland, College Park
, where he remained until his death.
[6]
Family life and death
[
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]
Olson married his wife, Alison, in 1959, and the couple had three children.
[3]
At the time of his death, he was a resident of College Park, Maryland.
[5]
On February 19, 1998, Olson, then 66 years of age, suddenly collapsed outside his office after returning from lunch. He never regained consciousness and died on the same day. He and his infant son are buried in the cemetery of his childhood church, Grue Norwegian Lutheran, near his family’s farm and hometown of Buxton, Traill County, North Dakota. The cause of death was later determined to be a
heart attack
.
[5]
Legacy
[
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]
Academic work
[
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]
In his first book,
The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups
(1965), he theorized that what stimulates people to act in groups is incentive; members of large groups do not act in accordance with a common interest unless motivated by personal gain (economic, social, etc.). While small groups can act on shared objectives, large groups will not work towards shared objectives unless their individual members are sufficiently motivated.
[7]
In 1982, he expanded the scope of his earlier work in an attempt to explain
The Rise and Decline of Nations
(1982). He argues that groups such as cotton farmers, steel producers, and
labor unions
have an incentive to form
lobby groups
and influence policies in their favor. These policies will tend to be
protectionist
, which will hurt
economic growth
; but because the benefits of such policies are concentrated, and their costs are diffused throughout the whole population, there will be little public resistance to them. As distributional coalitions accumulate, nations burdened by them will fall into economic decline. His work influenced the formulation of the
Calmfors?Driffill hypothesis
of
collective bargaining
.
[8]
In his final book,
Power and Prosperity
(2000), Olson distinguished between the economic effects of different types of government, in particular,
tyranny
,
anarchy
, and
democracy
. Olson argued that under anarchy, a "roving bandit" only has the incentive to steal and destroy, whilst a "
stationary bandit
"?a tyrant?has an incentive to encourage some degree of economic success as he expects to remain in power long enough to benefit from that success. A stationary bandit thereby begins to take on the governmental function of protecting citizens and their property against roving bandits. In the move from roving to stationary bandits, Olson sees the seeds of
civilization
, paving the way, eventually for democracy, which by giving power to those who align with the wishes of the population, improves incentives for good government.
[9]
Olson's work on the roving vs. stationary bandits is influential in analysis of the political and economic order structured in
warlord
states and societies.
[
citation needed
]
Policy work
[
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]
To help bring his ideas to the attention of policymakers, Olson founded the Center for Institutional Reform in the Informal Sector ("IRIS Center"), funded by
USAID
(United States Agency for International Development). Based at the University of Maryland, the Center sought to supply an intellectual foundation for legal and economic reform projects carried out by USAID in formerly communist states that were attempting to make the transition to market-driven democratic governments governed by the
rule of law
. It was particularly active in East and Central Europe and the former Soviet Union.
[
citation needed
]
The Center also became actively involved in projects in South America, Africa, and Asia, where it became a proponent of
judicial independence
. It sponsored the first conference on
corruption
in francophone Africa in the 1990s, when it was a very sensitive subject.
[
citation needed
]
The IRIS Center continued to operate after Olson's death, but was eventually folded into other programs at the University of Maryland.
To honor Olson's many contributions, the
American Political Science Association
established the Olson Award for the best PhD dissertation in Political Economy.
[10]
In 2013 the University of Maryland announced the creation of a new
endowed professorship
?the Mancur Olson Professor of Economics.
[11]
Maryland Professor of Economics Peter Murrell was the first Mancur Olson Professor.
Selected works
[
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]
Books
[
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]
Articles
[
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]
See also
[
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]
References
[
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]
- ^
https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PNACC813.pdf
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
Dixit, Avinash (June 1999). "Mancur Olson-Social Scientist".
The Economic Journal
.
109
(456): F443?F452.
doi
:
10.1111/1468-0297.00444
.
JSTOR
2566014
.
- ^
a
b
"Collection: Mancur Olson papers"
.
archives.lib.umd.edu
. University of Maryland, College Park
. Retrieved
February 21,
2022
.
- ^
a
b
Lardner, James (October 12, 1982).
"Why America Is Outhustled Mancur"
.
Washington Post
. Retrieved
February 21,
2022
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
Barnes, Bart (February 25, 1998).
"MANCUR OLSON DIES AT 66"
.
Washington Post
. Retrieved
February 21,
2022
.
- ^
a
b
Peter Passell (February 24, 1998).
"Mancur Olson, 66, a Professor and Author of Economics Books"
.
New York Times
.
- ^
Mancur Olson Jr., 1965, 2nd ed., 1971.
The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups
, Harvard University Press,
Description
,
Table of Contents
, and
preview
.
- ^
Mancur Olson, 1982.
The Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation, and Social Rigidities
, Yale University Press, 1982.
Description
, chapter-preview
links
, and review
quotes
.
- ^
Mancur Olson, 2000.
Power and Prosperity: Outgrowing Communist and Capitalist Dictatorships
, Oxford University Press.
Description
and chapter-preview
links.
Foreign Affairs
review
.
- ^
Organized Section 25: Mancur Olson Best Dissertation Award
- ^
"Recent News: May 14, 2013 | Department of Economics, University of Maryland"
. Archived from
the original
on December 2, 2013
. Retrieved
May 18,
2013
.
External links
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]
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