IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ecopol/v2y1990i2p115-132.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Public Goods, Rent Dissipation, And Candidate Competition

Author

Listed:
  • Heinrich W. Ursprung

Abstract

The early literature on rent seeking presumed that total expenditures in the rent‐seeking process would equal the value of a contested prize. Subsequent analysis has shown, however, that a number of circumstances give rise to underdissipation of the contested rent—imperfectly discriminating contests, risk‐aversion, or where individuals' valuations of the prize are not identical. This paper shows how underdissipation is associated with the public‐good character of contested rents. In particular, total rent dissipation is demonstrated to be less than the average stake of the individual contenders. In addition to assessing rent dissipation in contests for public‐good allocations, the paper also endogenizes the value of the prize by placing the rent‐seeking contest in a setting of candidate competition.

Suggested Citation

  • Heinrich W. Ursprung, 1990. "Public Goods, Rent Dissipation, And Candidate Competition," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 2(2), pages 115-132, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ecopol:v:2:y:1990:i:2:p:115-132
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0343.1990.tb00026.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0343.1990.tb00026.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1468-0343.1990.tb00026.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Magee,Stephen P. & Brock,William A. & Young,Leslie, 1989. "Black Hole Tariffs and Endogenous Policy Theory," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521377003.
    2. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65(2), pages 135-135.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Trofimov, Ivan D., 2017. "Political economy of trade protection and liberalization: in search of agency-based and holistic framework of policy change," MPRA Paper 79504, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Long Andrew G. & Kastner Justin J. & Kassatly Raymond, 2013. "Is Food Security a New Tariff? Explaining Changes in Sanitary and Phytosanitary Regulations by World Trade Organization Members," Global Economy Journal, De Gruyter, vol. 13(1), pages 25-46, January.
    3. Kym Anderson & Gordon Rausser & Johan Swinnen, 2013. "Political Economy of Public Policies: Insights from Distortions to Agricultural and Food Markets," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 51(2), pages 423-477, June.
    4. Charles B. Blankart & Gerrit B. Koester, 2006. "Political Economics versus Public Choice," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(2), pages 171-200, May.
    5. Rauscher, Michael, 1995. "Protectionists, environmentalists, and the formation of environmental policy in an open economy," Discussion Papers, Series II 256, University of Konstanz, Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) 178 "Internationalization of the Economy".
    6. Susanne Lohmann, 1995. "A Signaling Model Of Competitive Political Pressures," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(3), pages 181-206, November.
    7. Michaelis, Peter, 1994. "Regulate us, please!: On strategic lobbying in Cournot-nash oligopoly," Kiel Working Papers 626, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    8. Gabszewicz, J. J. & van Ypersele, T., 1996. "Social protection and political competition," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 193-208, August.
    9. Bryan Caplan, 2003. "The Logic of Collective Belief," Rationality and Society, , vol. 15(2), pages 218-242, May.
    10. repec:lic:licosd:32312 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Eromenko, Igor, 2010. "Accession to the WTO. Computable General Equilibrium Analysis: the Case of Ukraine. Part II," MPRA Paper 67452, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Rauscher, Michael, 1995. "Protectionists, environmentalists, and the formation of environmental policy in an open economy," Kiel Working Papers 685, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    13. Andy Baker, 2005. "Who Wants to Globalize? Consumer Tastes and Labor Markets in a Theory of Trade Policy Beliefs," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 49(4), pages 924-938, October.
    14. De Gorter, Harry & Swinnen, Jo, 1995. "The Political Economy and Institutional Determinants of Public Policy in Agriculture," 1994 Conference, August 22-29, 1994, Harare, Zimbabwe 183390, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    15. Carsten Herrmann-Pillath, 2009. "Diversity, identity, and the indeterminacy of the size of nations," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 27(1), pages 15-38, February.
    16. Eromenko, Igor, 2011. "Accession to the WTO. Computable General Equilibrium Analysis: the Case of Ukraine," MPRA Paper 67535, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Coggins, Jay S., 1994. "Trade and the Food Industries: Public and Social Choice," Staff Papers 200577, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics.
    18. Christopher S. P. Magee & Amy M. Wolaver, 2005. "Policy Divergence in Races for the U.S. House of Representatives," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 86(3), pages 565-581, September.
    19. Wilfred J. Ethier & Arye L. Hillman, 2017. "The Politics of International Trade," CESifo Working Paper Series 6456, CESifo.
    20. Christophe Crombez, 2004. "Introduction," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 16(3), pages 227-231, July.
    21. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ecopol:v:2:y:1990:i:2:p:115-132. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0954-1985 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.