Rent seeking leads to a misallocation of resources that worsens economic outcomes and reduces aggregate welfare. We conduct a quantitative examination of the distributional effects of rent extraction via the financial sector. Rent seeking introduces a possibility for insurance against...

Political connections between firms and autocratic regimes are not secret and often even publicly displayed in many developing economies. We argue that tying a firm's available rent to a regime's survival acts as a credible commitment forcing entrepreneurs to support the government and to exert...

We study the rent-seeking phenomenon using a simple, static general equilibrium model. The economy consists of two sectors, both employing a constant returns-to-scale technology with labor as its sole input. One of the sectors is a monopoly, where a continuum of agents compete for a share of...

We introduce a dynamic model that investigates the persistence and evolution of elite-dominated societies, where inherited political capital determines one’s social standing. Our analysis highlights the critical role of the distribution of exit options in the evolution of political...

We study the economic effects of unilateral adoption of corporate tax policies that include destination-based taxes and/or cash ow taxes in a heterogeneous agent model in which multinational firms can endogenously shift income between countries using transfer prices. Standard pass through...

Almost 140 countries have agreed to reallocate the rights to tax international corporate profits and to introduce minimum tax rates. The agreed plan is the product of pragmatism and a search for consensus, but ambitious. It includes steps towards unitary taxation to be established by a...

In West Africa, the Value Added Tax (VAT) policy consists of a uniform tax rate, but several items consumed by rich and poor households, are exempted. We provide an optimal tax framework to reflect on the welfare effects of such a tariff structure, in the context of current debates on domestic...

From marketing and advertising to political campaigning and court proceedings, contending parties expend resources to persuade an audience of the correctness of their view. We examine how the probability of persuading the audience depends on the resources expended by the parties, so that...