The Number of Rent-Seekers and Aggregate Rent-Seeking Expenditures: An Unpleasant Result.
The author examines a rent-seeking contest in which the winner gets a minimum rent but also gets an additional rent that is an increasing function of his lobbying expenditure. He gives real-world examples of such rent-seeking competitions. Contrary to the standard result in the rent-seeking literature, the author obtains the perverse result that aggregate rent-seeking expenditures may be inversely related to the number of rentseekers. However, he notes that, even if this result holds, the cost of administering rent-seeking competitions may imply that society is better-off with fewer contenders than with an infinitely large number of contenders, although the optimal number may not be the smallest number. Copyright 1999 by Kluwer Academic Publishers
Year of publication: |
1999
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Authors: | Amegashie, J Atsu |
Published in: |
Public Choice. - Springer. - Vol. 99.1999, 1-2, p. 57-62
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Publisher: |
Springer |
Saved in:
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