An experimental examination of rational rent-seeking

The theoretical literature exploring various ramifications and applications of Tullock's (1980) rent-seeking model is extensive and rapidly growing. In contrast, there exist as yet only a few experimental evaluations of this model, with ambiguous results. Moreover, these studies focus on one particular case (proportional probabilities) and use a problematic experimental design. With an appropriate design we investigate the extreme cases of proportional probabilities and perfect discrimination, which offer the starkest contrast in theoretical predictions. We find substantial evidence for the predictive power of the rent-seeking model, particularly if one allows for the fact that people sometimes make mistakes or are confused about what to do.     

The going-public decision and rent-seeking activities: Evidence from Chinese private companies

This paper examines the determinants and consequences of going public for Chinese private companies during the process of reforms and opening up in China with a full sample that includes 584 initial public offerings (IPOs) of private companies and 584 of non-listed private companies from 2006 to 2014. Our results first reveal that the decision to go public is positively correlated to firm size and the market-to-book (MTB) ratio of the corresponding industry and negatively correlated to financial leverage and firm age. However, when considering the role of rent-seeking activities, the effect of the MTB ratio switches from positive to negative. The evidence also indicates that IPOs have a negative impact on firm performance, although they have a positive impact on the asset liability ratio and total assets afterwards. These findings offer several useful insights for policymakers and researchers.     

政府采购中的寻租行为及其治理

我国当前政府采购中滋生的各种寻租行为，造成了社会资源的浪费和供应商的市场竞争力下降，扰乱了市场经济秩序，导致了经济效率的低下。其原因主要是利益驱动．相关法制建制不完善，寻租成本过低。应规范政府采购的行政权力；健全政府采购法律体系，严格执法；加大寻租成本。     

Rent-seeking under a weak institutional environment

This paper investigates the role of the institutional environment on economic performance when the state intervenes to correct market failure. Results demonstrate that in the presence of weak institutions rent-seeking plays a crucial role for achieving second best resources allocation.     

Organizational structure, redistribution and the endogeneity of cost: Cooperatives, investor-owned firms and the cost of procurement

As an organizational type, cooperatives are in general not the dominant form of enterprise. Nevertheless, cooperatives and cooperative-like organizations do play important roles in a number of sectors, suggesting that in some circumstances they are more efficient than other business forms. This paper explores the importance of membership goals on the relative efficiency of the cooperative form of organization. The cooperative cost (and hence production efficiency) advantage is directly linked to the goal alignment between the cooperative and its members, and is influenced by the extent of income redistribution between members and the degree of rent seeking that takes place in the organization. When there is no aversion to income inequality, the members produce at their first best levels. However, as aversion to inequality rises, the production profile of the members converges to the production profile generated when the members face an IOF. Regarding rent seeking, if the more (less) efficient members are able to get their profits valued more, total output is increased (decreased). As a consequence, consumers may benefit from the lobbying that occurs inside a cooperative where the powerful members are the most efficient agents.     

政府公共支出结构对腐败的影响效应分析

政府公共支出结构是影响腐败的主要经济因素之一。本文建立腐败的客观衡量指标,采用固定效应模型,定量分析政府公共支出结构及政府支出规模、市场化程度、教育水平、工资水平以及经济发展水平等对腐败的影响,研究结果表明:减少寻租性支出、提高生产性支出对腐败有着显著的抑制作用,同时控制政府支出规模、提高私有化程度对反腐败也有显著正效应;提高人均收入水平和经济增长率对腐败存在着预期的负效应,但在统计上并不显著;教育水平和政府公务员相对工资的提高不利于反腐败,这与大多数实证分析的结果相反。     

城市土地价格异化问题探析

在我国城市土地资产经营过程中,土地市场并非一个完全竞争的市场。土地作为最重要的生产要素其价格往往易受到政府政策选择的干预,土地市场上存在着比较严重的政府官员的寻租行为和开发商相互间的不正当竞争活动。目前关于土地方面的税费体系还存在着诸多的不合理成分以及隐性土地交易的行为还普遍存在,因而土地价格实践中所表现出来的往往也就并非经济学意义上的由供求平衡影响所确定的均衡价格,相反,在某种程度上它更多体现的是对现实中土地价格的歪曲并进而无形中形成了通常所说的土地价格的异化问题。     

Tullock and Hirshleifer: a meeting of the minds

We introduce the serial contest by building on the desirable properties of two prominent contest games. This family of contest games relies both on relative efforts (as Tullock’s proposal) and on absolute effort differences (as difference-form contests). An additional desirable feature is that the serial contest is homogeneous of degree zero in contestants’ efforts. The family is characterized by a parameter representing how sensitive the outcome is to contestants’ efforts. It encompasses as polar cases the (fair) lottery and the (deterministic) all-pay auction. Equilibria have a close relationship to those of the (deterministic) all-pay auction and important properties of the latter hold for the serial contest, too.      

证券公司内部控制的研究与探索——基于寻租视角的“防火墙”建设

近年来不断有证券公司由于违规操作等经营失败倒闭,另一方面证券市场金融创新又给证券公司带来一系列的寻租领域。本文从证券公司的寻租角度,提出了如何完善证券公司内部控制的“防火墙“机制的思路。     

Influence and the discretionary allocation of several prizes

When a decision process involves discretion, it may also be open to influence by various actors. If a single prize is at issue, then this influence can be modelled in the context of a rent-seeking game. However, the basic rent-seeking model needs to be extended in order to examine the amount of influence exerted when more than one prize is at stake. In this paper, we investigate the effect of several factors which may affect rent-seeking in this multi-prize framework but are not accounted for in single-prize models; examples here are the number of prizes, the division of the prize mass and the distribution mechanism which is employed.