Economic paradigms advance on the basis of 3 things --- ideas, funding, and positions. Ideas are clearly the most important --- without ideas you cannot get very far. But lesser ideas have won out over better ones due to the better ones lacking funding and positions. That, however, is for a different day to discuss.
Robert Lucas was one time asked why the rational expectation/new classical movement took off so fast in the mid 1970s, and Lucas's response was that for every one paper he wrote there were 10 dissertations that could be written as follow up. One of my favorite papers about James Buchanan and the public choice revolution he inspired is Bill Shughart and Bob Tollison's "A Creative Theorist in His Workshop: James Buchanan as a Positive Economist" -- the paper lists a series of propositions that Buchanan's work puts forth that demand continued study.
There is a new document available on suggested research topics by Ludwig von Mises. I note that some of them have been pursued --- e.g., Armentano's Antitrust and Monopoly, but I am sure there are others still begging to be pursued.
The research topic list has been typed in and is now available in a fully searchable pdf.
http://www.mises.org/etexts/Mises_Research_Ideas.pdf
Posted by: Daniel J. D'Amico | May 05, 2006 at 03:39 PM