Background
Tideman, T. Nicolaus was born on August 11, 1943 in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Son of Robert and Jane Catherine (Schmidt) Tideman.
Tideman, T. Nicolaus was born on August 11, 1943 in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Son of Robert and Jane Catherine (Schmidt) Tideman.
Bachelor of Arts, Reed College, 1965. Doctor of Philosophy University Chicago, 1969.
Assistant professor Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1969—1973. Senior staff economist President's Council Economic Advisors, Washington, 1970-1971. Postdoctoral fellow Center for Study of Public Choice, Blacksburg, Virginia, 1973-1975.
Associate professor Virginia Polytechnic Institute, 1975-1985, professor economics, since 1985. President Schalkenbach Foundation, New York City, 1996—2002. Consultant Bureau of the Budget, Washington, 1969, United States Treasury, Washington, 1973-1975, various law firms, Boston, also Roanoke, Virginia, 1972-1996.
My first publication resulted from collaboration with a teacher (Marshall Hall) to characterise measures of concentration. The principal theme of my work, however, has been how appropriate action is identified and implemented.
When first introduced to welfare economics an an undergraduate, I was awed, fascinated and puzzled by the idea that economic analysis could specify what collective action was appropriate when individuals disagreed. My doctoral dissertation dealt with ways of achieving efficiency in land use in the face of interdependencies.
Part of the dissertation was a collaboration with Gene Smolensky and Dick Burton on the efficient size and spacing of public goods. A separate collaboration with Smolensky and Don Nichols dealt with waiting time as an imperfect device for rationing public services to just the most needy. But my chief interest has been decision rules.
One branch of this work has dealt with new one-personone-vote voting rules, some of this work in collaboration with I. J. Good. Another branch has dealt with identifying suitable weights for combining the preferences of different persons. This led to a variety of explorations of the demand-revealing process, some in collaboration with Gordon Tullock.
Seeing how the demand-revealing process, works made it clear that it is not just efficiency that is needed in collective decision rules but adherence to appropriate treatment of individuals. This has led me, in current work, to suggest that traditional approaches to normative economics should be replaced by a Lockean approach, and that a restructured society could finance efficient local public goods without coercive taxes.
Member American Economic Association (nominating committee, 1992), Mount Tabor Ruritan Club (president 1995).
Married Lisa Nicole Woodside, January 29, 1965 (divorced January 1971). Married Michael Jackson Estill Putney, January 19, 1971.