Tullock attended the University of Chicago where, after a break for military service during World War II, he received a J.D.

Following a brief period in private practice, he joined the Foreign Service in fall 1947, and was posted to Tianjin, China and later to Hong Kong and Korea.

[3] Tullock's collaboration with Buchanan produced The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy (1962), which quickly became a seminal work in the new field of public choice.

At VPI, Tullock wrote a number of influential articles and books, including Private Wants, Public Means (1970), The Logic of the Law (1971), The Social Dilemma (1974), and The Vote Motive (1976).

In 1983, Tullock and the Center for Study of Public Choice moved to George Mason University, at the time a relatively unknown school in Fairfax, Virginia.

[6] Tullock developed a theory referred to as rent-seeking, adapted from the term and concept introduced by economist David Ricardo in the 19th century.

An example of rent seeking is when a firm, union, or special-interest group lobbies political actors (e.g., politicians or bureaucrats) to influence legislation in a beneficial manner.