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Dr. James M. Buchananand the Nobel Prize

Thomas Li-Ping TangMiddle Tennessee State University, USA

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Dr. James M. Buchananand the Nobel Prize

The Concert HallThe Nobel Museum

The City Hall, Stockholm, SwedenThe European Congress of Psychology,

July 9-12, 2013, Stockholm, Sweden

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Alfred Bernhard Nobel

• Alfred Bernhard Nobel was born on October 21, 1833, in Stockholm, Sweden.

• Died on December 10, 1896, in Sanremo, Italy

• A Swedish chemist, engineer, innovator, and armaments manufacturer. He was the inventor of dynamite.

• He held 350 patents. 

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Alfred Nobel’s Signature

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Dr. James M. Buchanan

• Grandson of a Tennessee governor, John P. Buchanan

• Was born in Rutherford County, Tennessee on October 3, 1919,

• Died in Blacksburg, Virginia on January 9, 2013

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Dr. James M. Buchanan

• Received his BA degree from Middle Tennessee State Teachers College in 1940, (Major: Mathematics, English Literature, and Social Science)

• Masters degree from University of Tennessee in 1941, and

• Ph.D. from University of Chicago in 1948.

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Dr. James M, Buchanan

• Was Awarded the Alfred Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences

• For his contributions to the theory of political decision-making and public economics.

• The new political economy or “Public Choice”

• Book: The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy

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Dr. James M. Buchanan

• University of Virginia;• Virginia Tech: the Center for Study of

Public Choice;• George Mason University: Retired in 2007;• The University of Tennessee-Knoxville,

Florida State University, and UCLA. 

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Dr. James M. Buchanan

• In 1997, MTSU established the Buchanan Scholarship. He said:

• “Economics…requires expository writing skills, logical structures of analysis, and a grounding in ultimate reality.

• And political economy, the branch of moral philosophy from which economics springs, requires philosophical coherence. I came away from Middle Tennessee with all of these”

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Dr. James M. Buchanan

• Seminar in Honor of James M. Buchanan• On November 22, 1991, He said: • “When I was a student here, I did not

study hard enough”.• He once wrote:• “If Jim Buchanan can get a Nobel Prize,

anyone can.”

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Secret to His Success

• Hard Work,• A sense of Self-Confidence,• A Willingness to Challenge All

Authority, Scientific or Otherwise.

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His Exclusive Secret

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