This essay reviews the relationship between natural-resource abundance and economic growth around the world, and presents some new results. The principal reasons why resource-based production can inhibit economic growth over long periods are traced to the Dutch disease, neglect of education,...

We describe the evolution of the power struggle in Greece among key economic and political stakeholders, who have tried, via strategic positioning and rent-seeking activities, to influence economic policy outcomes during the postwar decades. We split the postwar decades in three periods: the...

This paper examines the impact of oil revenues on the Iranian economy over the past hundred years, spanning the period 1908-2010. It is shown that although oil has been produced in Iran over a very long period, its importance in the Iranian economy was relatively small up until the early 1960s....

What determines the structure of labour market institutions? This paper argues that common explanations based on rent sharing are incomplete; unions, job protection, and egalitarian pay structures may have as much to do with social insurance of otherwise uninsurable risks as with rent sharing and...

We describe and compare the experiences of academic exclusion of Alexander Del Mar, J.A. Hobson, and Gordon Tullock. While aspects of the circumstances differed, a common element was academic exclusion because of challenges to mainstream views. Alexander Del Mar, J.A. Hobson, and Gordon Tullock...

In a remarkably simple and yet in one of the most original and insightful observations of 20th century economics, Gordon Tullock observed that there are efficiency losses when public policies and political behavior create contestable rents. Tullock also observed that social losses from...

The paper empirically examines the implementation record of international financial regulation of the banking sector. The study finds that the size of the banking sector and the presence of global systemically important banks (G-SIBs) are positively associated with a stronger implementation...

A major contribution of the public-choice school is the recognition by Gordon Tullock that contestable rents give rise to social losses because of unproductive resource use. Contestable rents usually are politically assigned privileges. Contestable rents can also be found outside of government...

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...

Economists recommend to partly redistribute gains to losers from a structural reform, which in many cases may be required for making the reform politically viable. However, taxation is distortionary. Then, it is unclear that compensatory transfers can support a Pareto-improving reform. This...