In 1948, Buchanan first read the Swedish economist, Wicksell's Finanztheoretische Untersuchungen 1896 essay, "A New Principle of Just Taxation." He translated it from German and in his 1986 Nobel Prize lecture Buchanan said that Wicksell was an "important precursor of modern public-choice theory."had informed his own concept of unanimity-voting. Wicksell investigated a mechanism for voting how public goods could be financed in order to ensure that the tax burden was fairly distributed. Wicksell applied the benefit principle to taxation. By using the mechanism of unanimity-voting, everyone involved would have a guarantee of receiving "benefits commensurate to their tax cost from any public good". Wicksell said that no would be able to complain if he were able to receive "a benefit which he himself considers to be (greater or at least) as great as the price he has to pay".
In 1948, Buchanan first read the Swedish economist Wicksell's Finanztheoretische Untersuchungen 1896 essay, "A New Principle of Just Taxation." He translated it from German and in his 1986 Nobel Prize lecture Buchanan said that Wicksell was an "important precursor of modern public-choice theory."had informed his own concept of unanimity-voting. Wicksell investigated a mechanism for voting how public goods could be financed in order to ensure that the tax burden was fairly distributed. Wicksell applied the benefit principle to taxation. By using the mechanism of unanimity-voting everyone involved would have a guarantee of receiving "benefits commensurate to their tax cost from any public good". Wicksell said that no would be able to complain if he were able to receive "a benefit which he himself considers to be (greater or at least) as great as the price he has to pay"