The primary objective of this paper is to examine the role of differential sharing rules within a collective rent-seeking setting on the possible nonexistence of Nash equilibrium. Focusing on groups that distribute part of the rent equally among their members and the residual according to relative effort, the authors show that, in rent-seeking societies applying the two polar sharing rules, equilibrium never exists. In the general case where groups apply different but not necessarily the polar sharing rules, they study the relationship between group variability in distributing rents and the problems of nonexistence of equilibrium in the rent-seeking game. Copyright 1991 by Kluwer Academic Publishers
