Theoretical comparisons of the welfare consequences of tariffs, subsidies and import licenses have relied on the assumption that firms reap no private benefits from the imposition of a tariff. This paper conducts an empirical analysis of whether a recent change in U.S. antidumping law known as...

We study the value of commitment in contests and tournaments when there are costs for the follower to observe the leader's behavior. In a contest, the follower can pay to observe the leader's effort but cannot observe the effectiveness of that effort. In a tournament, the follower can pay to...

This paper reviews public choice theories of interest groups.

In the standard model of a rent-seeking contest, firms optimally employ resources in an attempt to win the contest and obtain the rent. Typically, it is assumed that these resources may be hired at any desired level at some fixed, exogenous per-unit cost. In many real-world rent-seeking...

This paper considers the extent to which expenditure by contestants in imperfectly discriminating rent-seeking contests dissipates all or only part of the rent. In particular, we investigate strategic effects, technological effects and asymmetry under an assumption of diminishing returns to...

In order to analyze conflict and cooperation between a State and a non ruling group in a general equilibrium, I unite pure rent-seeking models and economic models of conflict under an assumption of incomplete property rights. I show that a unique and globally stable Nash equilibrium exists in...

We present a general model of two players contest with two types of efforts. Contrary to the classical models of contest, where each player chooses a unique effort, and where the outcome depends on the efforts of all the players, contestants are allowed to reduce the effort of the opponent....

This paper consists of an introductory survey of two fundamental questions regarding the link between entrepreneurship and economic growth. The first one deals with the endogenous relationship between entrepreneurship and growth. In particular, we suggest that, while more entrepreneurship could...