RENT SEEKING AND SOCIAL INVESTMENT IN TASTE CHANGE
We study the social allocation of resources to the alteration of preferences. Such taste changes are Pareto-preferred if, according to both the original and the new taste regime, the resource allocation resulting from the taste change constitutes an improvement. According to this criterion, a degree of altruism is in general Pareto-preferred, because it reduces socially wasteful activities, such as lobbying, bargaining and other rent seeking activities designed to increase one agent's expected share of the contested rent. We present a stylized model that captures the role of education in generating altruism and thus reducing the expenditure on rent seeking. Copyright 1992 Blackwell Publishers Ltd..
Year of publication: |
1992
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Authors: | Guttman, Joel M. ; Nitzan, Shmuel ; Spiegel, Uriel |
Published in: |
Economics and Politics. - Wiley Blackwell. - Vol. 4.1992, 1, p. 31-42
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Publisher: |
Wiley Blackwell |
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