A Manager of other leader can more effectively obtain rents or other benefits for his organization the higher the quality of his staff. But these same staff may seek rents within the firm, with the most able staff best able to do so. A Manager may therefore prefer to employ staff of low quality.

We consider taxes on firms which engage in rent-seeking contests. The taxes can be on realized profits or on rent-seeking expenditures, and the firms can engage in a context where either the hoghest bidder wins the prize, or else a firm's probability of winning equals the ratio of its...

The spectrum auctions have heightened our perceprion of the electromagnetic spectrum. This invisible resource is one of the most valuable and important resource of our time.

Public investment can cause the preferences of the decisive voter in one period to differ from preferences of the decisive voter in an earlier period. Forward-looking voters may therefore vote against a policy that would increase the incomes of all persons. The effect may arise when increased...

For many countries in the world today and for much of history, investment in ordinary productive capital has been overshadowed by investment in enforcive capital: castles and siege machines; tanks, missiles and army barracks. We introduce a dynamic model which allows for investment in the latter...