An Exploration of Rent Seeking*

The aim of this paper is 10 survey critically the recent literature on rent seeking and Directly Unproductive Profit-Seeking Activities (DUP). The links with the related literatures on transactions costs and property rights are also explored. It is argued that a clearer understanding of wasteful competition emerges if the framework of constitutional economics is adopted. It is furthermore argued that a dynamic framework is most suitable to analyze wasteful competition