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 rent seeking can also take place in personal relations and within firms and bureaucracies. The contributions in this outstanding volume provide an accompaniment or 'companion' to the literature on rent seeking and the related political economy of rent creation and extraction. The chapters, written by leading scholars in the field, demonstrate the centrality of rent-related incentives to the study of economics, politics, culture, public administration and history. The expert and original contributions summarize and extend the literature in both theoretical and applied areas of research. The book begins with a clear and comprehensive description of the theory of rent seeking and of contest design for political and bureaucratic rent extraction. This is followed by a series of case studies showing the relevance of rent seeking for regulatory policies, international-trade policies, public finance, natural-resource discoveries, development aid, behavior in international bureaucracies, litigation and judicial systems. The applied chapters also include overviews of rent seeking and rent extraction in Europe, Russia, Asia, Africa and the US. This volume will appeal to a broad readership, including economists, political scientists and development practitioners, wishing to gain an understanding of the concept of rent seeking. The chapters in this book also provide an excellent introduction to the extensive literature.
Contents: PART I: INTRODUCTION 1. The Nature of Rent Seeking Roger D. Congleton 2. Rent Seeking as Political Economy Arye L. Hillman PART II: THEORY 3. The Theory of Contests: A Unified Model and Review of the Literature Ngo Van Long 4. Contestable Policies Gil S. Epstein and Shmuel Nitzan 5. Asymmetries in Rent Seeking Giuseppe Dari-Mattiacci, Eric Langlais, Bruno Lovat, and Francesco Parisi 6. Prize-sharing Rules in Collective Rent Seeking Sabine Flamand and Orestis Troumpounis 7. Rent Seeking and Organizational Structure Karl Warneryd 8. Contest Effort Yosef Mealem and Shmuel Nitzan 9. Sabotage in Contests J. Atsu Amegashie 10. Behavioral Dimensions of Contests Roman M. Sheremeta PART III: APPLICATIONS AND OUTCOMES 11. Regulatory Rent Seeking William F. Shughart II and Diana W. Thomas 12. Rents and International Trade Policy Arye L. Hillman 13. Rent Seeking Through Public Finance Michael Brooks 14. Rent Seeking and the Resource Curse Robert T. Deacon and Ashwin Rode 15. Rents and the Political Economy of Development Aid Rune Jansen Hagen 16. Rent Seeking in International Organizations Roland Vaubel 17. Litigation as Rent Seeking Francesco Parisi and Barbara Luppi PART IV: THE REALITY OF RENTS 18. Profit Seeking and Rent Seeking in the United States and Europe Dennis C. Mueller 19. Rents in a Welfare State Martin Paldam 20. Rent Seeking Through Control of the Sstate in Russia Mark I. Levin and Georgy A. Satarov 21. Rents and Development Failure in Africa John Mukum Mbaku and Mwangi S. Kimenyi 22. Economic Development and Corruption in China in the Shadow of Rent Seeking Kang Chen and Liu Qijung 23. Market Liberalization and Rent Seeking in India Sugata Marjit and Vivekananda Mukherjee 24. The Democratization of Rent Seeking in Modern Greece Thomas Moutos and Lambros Pechlivanos 25. Rent Seeking in the Democracy of Ancient Greece George Tridimas PART IV: CONSTITUTIONS AND INSTITUTIONS 26. Rent Seeking and Constitutional Political Economy Randall G. Holcombe 27. Rent Seeking, Rules and Organizational Evolution Roger D. Congleton Index
