Jac C. Heckelman
Professor
Email: heckeljc@wfu.edu
Site: users.wfu.edu/heckeljc/jac.htm
205 Kirby Hall
(336) 758-5923
Research Interests: Collective Action, Constitutional Economics, Voting Mechanisms, Economic History
CV available here: users.wfu.edu/heckeljc/vita.htm
Biography
Dr. Heckelman rejoined the Wake Forest faculty in 1996. Jac previously worked as an economist in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, was an operations research analyst with the Joint Warfare Analysis Center, and has been a research fellow at American Institute for Economic Research, and visiting scholar at West Virginia University and the Center for Study of Public Choice at George Mason University. He currently teaches Introduction to Economics, Public Finance, Public Choice, and Theory of Social Choice. His primary research interests are at the intersection of public choice and economic history. He has published over eighty papers covering such topics as drafting of the United States Constitution, secret ballot elections, voting by lottery, political business cycles, economic freedom indicators, and institutional sclerosis. His paper on “A Spatial Model of U.S. Senate Elections,” was awarded the first Gordon Tullock Prize for best article in Public Choice by a younger scholar, and a subsequent (co-authored) paper entitled “Voting on Slavery at the Constitutional Convention” also won the Tullock Prize. He is co-editor of the Elgar Handbook of Social Choice and Voting (2015), Public Choice Interpretations of American Economic History (1999) and Collective Choice: Essays in Honor of Mancur Olson (2003), and editor of the classroom text Readings in Public Choice Economics (2004).
Education
B.A. – University of Texas
Ph.D. – University of Maryland
Courses
ECN 150: Introduction to Economics
ECN 221: Public Finance
ECN 225: Public Choice
ECN 226: Theory of Social Choice
Featured Publications
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- “A Note on Neutrality and Majority Rule with an Application to State Votes from the Constitutional Convention of 1787” Public Choice 167: 245-255
- Handbook of Social Choice and Voting (edited with Nicholas Miller), Edward Elgar Press, 2015
- “A Spatial Analysis of Delegate Voting at the Constitutional Convention” (with Keith Dougherty) Journal of Economic History 73: 407-444, 2013
- “Strategy Proof Scoring Rule Lotteries for Multiple Winners” (with Fred Chen) Journal of Public Economic Theory 15: 108-123, 2013
- “Special Interest Groups and Growth” (with Dennis Coates and Bonnie Wilson) Public Choice 147: 439-457, 2011
Working Papers
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“Targeting Inflation Targeting: The Influence of Interest Groups” (with Bonnie Wilson)
- “The Probability of Violating Arrow’s Conditions” (with Keith Dougherty)