Using an extension of a standard rent-seeking model, this paper shows that "inclusiveness", as defined and measured in the text, is the property of a political system that motivates government to deter destructive rent seeking. Highly-inclusive polities are likely to be democracies since...

This note argues that, broadly speaking, democracies have a comparative advantage over dictatorships in keeping rent-seeking costs down by imposing penalties that reduce returns to scale in rent-seeking. Dictatorships have a comparative advantage in restricting the number of rent-seekers through...