Barnes and Stout's Economics of Constitutional Law and Public Choice

Examines the economic justifications for a coercive state; the economic and distributional implications of using legislative voting to make collective decisions; and the economic logic of constitutional devices such as separation of powers, an independent judiciary, and special protections for the political and property rights of individuals and oppressed classes. The analysis of constitutional law highlights the distribution of power among society's members and the distribution implications of alternative mechanism for institutionalizing state coercion.