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WINNER‐HELP‐LOSER GROUP FORMATION IN RENT‐SEEKING CONTESTS *
Author(s) -
Baik Kyung Hwan
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
economics and politics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1468-0343
pISSN - 0954-1985
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0343.1994.tb00093.x
Subject(s) - rent seeking , contest , inefficiency , microeconomics , group (periodic table) , economics , economic rent , law , political science , chemistry , organic chemistry , politics
We define a winner‐help‐loser group in a rent‐seeking contest as follows: (a) the member players compete noncooperatively to win the rent, and (b) if a member player wins the rent, he helps the losing member players according to the previously written agreement. We demonstrate that one and only one winner‐help‐loser group is formed voluntarily. One important consequence of such group formation is that rent dissipation is small relative to individual rent seeking. Therefore, such group formation decreases the social cost associated with rent seeking and thus decreases the economic inefficiency of rent seeking.