Corruption and Rent-Seeking

The rent-seeking theory was one of the first economic instruments developed to model corruption in the public sector. Comparing corruption with lobbying, it proposes that the former is the lesser of two evils, since lobbying entails the wastage of resources in the competition for preferential treatm...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inPublic choice Vol. 113; no. 1/2; pp. 97 - 125
Main Author Lambsdorff, Johann Graf
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Dordrecht Kluwer Academic Publishers 01.10.2002
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects
Competition
Corruption
Corruption in government
Decision making
Economic competition
Economic costs
Economic models
Economic regulation
Economic rent
Economic Theories
Economic theory
Economics
Efficiency
Fines & penalties
Game Theory
Government corruption
Lobbying
Monopoly
Political corruption
Politicians
Principal-agent theory
Public choice
Public sector
Rent seeking behavior
Rent-Seeking
Studies
Subsidies
Theoretical Problems
Welfare
Welfare economics
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:The rent-seeking theory was one of the first economic instruments developed to model corruption in the public sector. Comparing corruption with lobbying, it proposes that the former is the lesser of two evils, since lobbying entails the wastage of resources in the competition for preferential treatment. This study shows that the traditional rent-seeking theory misunderstands three factors: first, the impact of a corrupt monopoly on the rent's size; second, corruption as a motivation for supplying preferential treatment and third; that corruption involves a narrower range of interests than those of competitive lobbying. Taking these factors into consideration, the opposite argument is valid: corruption has worse welfare implications than alternative rent-seeking activities.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-1
content type line 23
ObjectType-Article-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
ISSN:0048-5829
1573-7101
DOI:10.1023/A:1020320327526