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...

This paper sheds light on the political economy of local energy politics both from a theoretical and an empirical perspective. A case study of a small town in Southern Germany (Schönau) is presented, where environmentalists have won the political contest against the regional energy monopolist...