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The Economics of Special Privilege and Rent Seeking

  • Book
  • © 1989

Overview

Authors:
  1. Gordon Tullock

    1. University of Arizona, USA

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Part of the book series: Studies in Public Choice (SIPC, volume 5)

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Table of contents (10 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-viii
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  2. Why is the Rent-Seeking Industry so Small?

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1
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    2. Introduction

      • Gordon Tullock
      Pages 3-9

    3. Rents, Ignorance, and Ideology

      • Gordon Tullock
      Pages 11-27

    4. The Cost of Rent Seeking: A Metaphysical Problem

      • Gordon Tullock
      Pages 29-39

    5. Efficient Rent Seeking, Diseconomies of Scale, Public Goods, and Morality

      • Gordon Tullock
      Pages 41-45

  3. Random Thoughts on Rent Seeking

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 47-47
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    2. Rent Seeking: The Problem of Definition

      • Gordon Tullock
      Pages 49-57

    3. Rent Seeking and the Market

      • Gordon Tullock
      Pages 59-66

    4. Strategic Behavior, Mixed Strategies, and the Defects of the Nash Equilibrium

      • Gordon Tullock
      Pages 67-71

    5. Rent Seeking and Transfers

      • Gordon Tullock
      Pages 73-77

    6. Rent Seeking and Tax Reform

      • Gordon Tullock
      Pages 79-89

    7. Concluding Thoughts

      • Gordon Tullock
      Pages 91-98

  4. Back Matter

    Pages 99-104
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Keywords

About this book

As the reader of this book probably already knows, I have devoted a great deal of time to the topic which is, rather unfortunately, named rent seeking. Rent seeking, the use of resources in actually lowering total product although benefiting some minority, is, unfortunately, a major activity of most governments. As a result of this, I have stumbled on a puzzle. The rent-seeking activity found in major societies is immense, but the industry devoted to producing it is nowhere near as immense. In Washington the rent-seeking industry is a very conspicuous part of the landscape. On the other hand, if you consider how much money is being moved by that industry, then it is comparatively small. The first question that this book seeks to answer is: How do we account for the disparity? A second problem is that almost all rent seeking is done in what superficially appears to be an extremely inefficient way. I recently got estimates of the net cost to the public of the farm program and its net benefit to the farmers. The first is many times the second. Indeed, it is not at all obvious that in the long run, today's farmers are better off than they would be if the program had never been implemented. Of course, in any given year, cancelling the program would be quite painful. The first section of this book, then, is devoted to this problem.

Authors and Affiliations

  • University of Arizona, USA

    Gordon Tullock

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: The Economics of Special Privilege and Rent Seeking

  • Authors: Gordon Tullock

  • Series Title: Studies in Public Choice

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7813-4

  • Publisher: Springer Dordrecht

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

  • Copyright Information: Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 1989

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-7923-9011-4Published: 31 August 1989

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-90-481-5779-2Published: 04 December 2010

  • eBook ISBN: 978-94-015-7813-4Published: 14 March 2013

  • Series ISSN: 0924-4700

  • Series E-ISSN: 2731-5258

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: VIII, 104

  • Topics: Public Economics, Political Science

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