This paper presents a general rent-seeking model in which participants decide on entry before choosing their levels of efforts. The conventional wisdom in the rent-seeking literature suggests that the rent dissipation increases with the number of potential participants and with their pro-...

The quest for benefit from existing wealth or by seeking privileged benefit through influence over policy is known as rent seeking. Much rent seeking activity involves government and political decisions and is therefore in the domain of political economy, although it can also take place in...

In rent-seeking contests, players are seldom identical to one another. In this chapter, we examine the rent-seeking literature that explores the effects of specific forms of asymmetry between contestants. We consider Tullock’s rent-seeking contests involving two players who differ in strength...

Shavell (1980) established that tort regimes fail to incentivize optimal activity levels. The bearer of residual loss adopts a socially optimal activity level; however, the nonbearer of residual loss will adopt an excessive level. We explore alternative liability rules, which distribute the cost...

We study the relations between compensation schemes and risk aversion of managers in a strategic framework. We first show that the use of relative performance evaluation (RPE) in compensation contracts reduces the equilibrium profits of Cournot firms if managers are not too risk averse. Second,...

There is extensive literature on whether courts or legislators produce efficient rules, but which of them produces rules efficiently? Is there an optimal mix of litigation and legislation? The law is inevitably subject to a certain degree of uncertainty ex ante; uncertainty makes the outcomes of...