Synopses & Reviews
The fifth volume in The Selected Works of Gordon Tullock consists of six parts, each part expounding on a separate component of the field. Part 1, Rent Seeking: An Overview,” brings together two papers that focus on problems of defining rent-seeking behavior and outline the nature of the ongoing research program in a historical perspective. Part 2, More on Efficient Rent Seeking,” contains four contributions in which Tullock elaborates on his 1980 article on efficient rent seeking. Part 3, The Environments of Rent Seeking,” consists of eight papers that collectively display the breadth of the rent-seeking concept. Part 4, The Cost of Rent Seeking,” comprises seven papers that address several important issues about the cost of rent seeking to society as a whole. Part 5 is Tullocks short monograph Exchanges and Contracts, in which he develops a systematic theory of exchange in political markets. In Part 6, Future Directions for Rent-Seeking Research,” Tullock focuses on the importance of information in the political marketplace.
This work has been carefully constructed to build on the inaugural volume in this collection and to ease students through the field in a clear and concise manner.
Charles K. Rowley is Duncan Black Professor of Economics at George Mason University and a Senior Fellow of the James M. Buchanan Center for Political Economy at George Mason University. He is also General Director of the Locke Institute.
The entire series includes:
Volume 1: Virginia Political Economy
Volume 2: The Calculus of Consent
Volume 3: The Organization of Inquiry (November 2004)
Volume 4: The Economics of Politics (February 2005)
Volume 5: The Rent-Seeking Society (March 2005)
Volume 6: Bureaucracy (June 2005)
Volume 7: The Economics and Politics of Wealth Redistribution (July 2005)
Volume 8: The Social Dilemma: Of Autocracy, Revolution, Coup d'Etat, and War (December 2005)
Volume 9: Law and Economics (December 2005)
Volume 10: Economics without Frontiers (January 2006)
Synopsis
The fifth volume in The Selected Works of Gordon Tullock consists of six parts, each part expounding on a separate component of the field. Part 1, "Rent Seeking: An Overview," brings together two papers that focus on problems of defining rent-seeking behavior and outline the nature of the ongoing research program in a historical perspective. Part 2, "More on Efficient Rent Seeking," contains four contributions in which Tullock elaborates on his 1980 article on efficient rent seeking. Part 3, "The Environments of Rent Seeking," consists of eight papers that collectively display the breadth of the rent-seeking concept. Part 4, "The Cost of Rent Seeking," comprises seven papers that address several important issues about the cost of rent seeking to society as a whole. Part 5 is Tullock's short monograph Exchanges and Contracts, in which he develops a systematic theory of exchange in political markets. In Part 6, "Future Directions for Rent-Seeking Research," Tullock focuses on the importance of information in the political marketplace.
This work has been carefully constructed to build on the inaugural volume in this collection and to ease students through the field in a clear and concise manner.
Gordon Tullock is Professor Emeritus of Law at George Mason University, where he was Distinguished Research Fellow in the Center for Study of Public Choice and University Professor of Law and Economics. He also taught at the University of South Carolina, the University of Virginia, Rice University, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, and the University of Arizona. In 1966 he founded the journal that became Public Choice and remained its editor until 1990.
Charles K. Rowley was Duncan Black Professor of Economics at George Mason University and a Senior Fellow of the James M. Buchanan Center for Political Economy at George Mason University. He was also General Director of the Locke Institute.
Table of Contents
Introduction,
by Charles K. Rowley1. RENT SEEKING: AN OVERVIEW
Rent Seeking: The Problem of Definition 3
Rent Seeking 11
2. MORE ON EFFICIENT RENT SEEKING
Efficient Rent-Seeking Revisited 85
Back to the Bog 88
Another Part of the Swamp 93
Still Somewhat Muddy: A Comment 95
3.THE ENVIRONMENTS OF RENT SEEKING
Rent Seeking as a Negative-Sum Game 103
Industrial Organization and Rent Seeking in Dictatorships 122
Transitional Gains and Transfers 136
Rents and Rent-Seeking 148
Why Did the Industrial Revolution Occur in England? 160
Rent Seeking and Tax Reform 171
Rent-Seeking and the Law 184
Excise Taxation in the Rent-Seeking Society 196
4. THE COST OF RENT SEEKING
The Costs of Rent Seeking: A Metaphysical Problem 203
Rents, Ignorance, and Ideology 214
Efficient Rent Seeking, Diseconomies of Scale, Public Goods,
and Morality 231
Are Rents Fully Dissipated? 236
Where Is the Rectangle? 241
Which Rectangle? 253
5. EXCHANGES AND CONTRACTS 261
6. FUTURE DIRECTIONS FOR RENT-SEEKING RESEARCH 295
INDEX 313