Corrupted tobacco economists network, Part 36: even more pro-tobacco books

Overview of previous posts here

Charging beneficiaries for public services (1989)

Probably the authors liked the money they made writing books and in 1988, Tollison and Wagner proposed writing a book Public Services: User Charges and Earmarked Taxes in Principle and Practice (notice Wagner uses the letterhead of GMU)


Tobacco Institute employee Martin Gleason wrote (May 31, 1989)

In June, Gleason added

And, in an undated memo

This time Richard Wagner was the lead author, perhaps to give Tollison a bit lower profile as he already led two other tobacco books. Other authors included Gary M Anderson, Bruce Yandle, Dwight R. Lee, Henri Lepage, Mwangi S. Kimenyi, James M. Buchanan and Fred S. McChesney.

The two non-network members are "Nobel Prize" winner James M. Buchanan (his name pops up everywhere in the LTDL, and he was involved in the 1984 workshop leading to the network) and French libertarian economist Henri Lepage (member of several of the same think tanks as the other economists, and a current member of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF)).

Even though Wagner was the first author, Tollison charged the Tobacco Institute

The fourth invoice also charged $36,250, so probably the industry paid $145,000, exactly the amount the authors proposed

Buchanan must have earned more because he held a Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, explaining his high market value: how many politicians would dare to say a Nobel Prize winning economist was wrong on economy ?

It is clear the book was promoted the same way as Smoking and the State