COMPARATIVE POLECOMETRICS: POLITICAL-ECONOMIC CONFLUENCE IN THE POSTWAR POLYARCHY, 1950-1979

The credibility once accorded the political neutrality of standard economic theory and policy is being steadily eroded. As the resulting difficulties multiply, the foundations of economic analysis weaken. To initiate rectification, this study operationalizes two major proposals: (a) that economics overcome its remoteness by making the political variable an integral part of its explicit mode of thought and operation, and (b) that political inquiry actively assist this corrective process by spelling out what the integrable political variables are and what measurable regularities govern their operation.;To gain insight into this realistic stance, a model of political-economic confluence is specified, estimated, and simulated using 1950-1979 data for a sample of six OECD polyarchies. An eclectic approach is used, combining the relevant elements of public choice with unorthodox and institutional economics. The ensuing generalizations are based on a number of significant political-economic relationships and their revealed mechanisms. These tested through tentative hypotheses are logically combined to produce hypothetical deductions that constitute the premises of an emerging theory of political-economic confluence or "poleconomics." The theoretical and practical significance of this theory is discussed and some of its further research and analytic needs are broached.