Nothing Special   »   [go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v141y2016icp8-10.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Complete rent dissipation when the number of rent seekers is uncertain

Author

Listed:
  • Kahana, Nava
  • Klunover, Doron
Abstract
The focal question in the theory of rent seeking is the extent of rent dissipation as the indicator of social loss. In general, rent-seeking models assume that the number of contenders in a rent-seeking contest is known with certainty but, given the hidden nature of rent seeking, participants in rent seeking more usually can be expected to face an uncertain number of rivals. We show that, in a Tullock contest with a stochastic number of participants, complete ex-ante rent dissipation is consistent with a pure-strategy Nash equilibrium. This contrasts with but complements previous results of under-dissipation when the number of rent seekers is uncertain. Our complete-dissipation result expands the range of circumstances consistent with association of an observed rent with social loss.

Suggested Citation

  • Kahana, Nava & Klunover, Doron, 2016. "Complete rent dissipation when the number of rent seekers is uncertain," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 8-10.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:141:y:2016:i:c:p:8-10
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2016.01.025
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176516300179
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2016.01.025?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nava Kahana & Doron Klunover, 2015. "A note on Poisson contests," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 165(1), pages 97-102, October.
    2. Lim, Wooyoung & Matros, Alexander, 2009. "Contests with a stochastic number of players," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 584-597, November.
    3. Konrad, Kai A., 2009. "Strategy and Dynamics in Contests," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199549603.
    4. Eyal Baharad & Shmuel Nitzan, 2008. "Contest Efforts in Light of Behavioural Considerations," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(533), pages 2047-2059, November.
    5. Myerson, Roger B., 1998. "Extended Poisson Games and the Condorcet Jury Theorem," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 111-131, October.
    6. Roman M. Sheremeta, 2014. "Behavioral Dimensions of Contests," Working Papers 14-14, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    7. Roger B. Myerson, 1998. "Population uncertainty and Poisson games," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 27(3), pages 375-392.
    8. Emmanuel Dechenaux & Dan Kovenock & Roman Sheremeta, 2015. "A survey of experimental research on contests, all-pay auctions and tournaments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(4), pages 609-669, December.
    9. J. David Pérez-Castrillo & Thierry Verdier, 1992. "A general analysis of rent-seeking games," Springer Books, in: Roger D. Congleton & Arye L. Hillman & Kai A. Konrad (ed.), 40 Years of Research on Rent Seeking 1, pages 133-148, Springer.
    10. Arye Hillman & Dov Samet, 1987. "Dissipation of contestable rents by small numbers of contenders," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 54(1), pages 63-82, January.
    11. Roger Myerson & Karl Wärneryd, 2006. "Population uncertainty in contests," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 27(2), pages 469-474, January.
    12. Roger D. Congleton & Arye L. Hillman (ed.), 2015. "Companion to the Political Economy of Rent Seeking," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 15325.
    13. repec:elg:eechap:15325_10 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Roman M. Sheremeta, 2013. "Overbidding And Heterogeneous Behavior In Contest Experiments," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 491-514, July.
    15. Baye, Michael R & Kovenock, Dan & de Vries, Casper G, 1994. "The Solution to the Tullock Rent-Seeking Game When R Is Greater Than 2: Mixed-Strategy Equilibria and Mean Dissipation Rates," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 81(3-4), pages 363-380, December.
    16. Eyal Baharad & Shmuel Nitzan, 2008. "Contest Efforts in Light of Behavioural Considerations," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(533), pages 2047-2059, November.
    17. Arye L. Hillman, 2013. "Rent seeking," Chapters, in: William F. Shughart II & Laura Razzolini & Michael Reksulak (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Public Choice, Second Edition, chapter 19, pages 307-330, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Heijnen, Pim & Schoonbeek, Lambert, 2019. "Rent-seeking with uncertain discriminatory power," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 103-114.
    2. Mikhail Drugov & Dmitry Ryvkin, 2019. "The shape of luck and competition in tournaments," Working Papers w0251, New Economic School (NES).
    3. Arye Hillman & Ngo Van Long, 2017. "The social cost of contestable benefits," CIRANO Working Papers 2017s-11, CIRANO.
    4. Boris Ginzburg, 2021. "Optimal Price Of Entry Into A Competition," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 59(1), pages 280-286, January.
    5. Arye L. Hillman & Ngo Van Long, 2017. "Rent Seeking: The Social Cost of Contestable Benefits," CESifo Working Paper Series 6462, CESifo.
    6. Luke Boosey & Philip Brookins & Dmitry Ryvkin, 2020. "Entry in group contests," Working Papers wp2020_02_01, Department of Economics, Florida State University.
    7. Drugov, Mikhail & Ryvkin, Dmitry, 2017. "Winner-Take-All Tournaments," CEPR Discussion Papers 12067, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Boosey, Luke & Brookins, Philip & Ryvkin, Dmitry, 2017. "Contests with group size uncertainty: Experimental evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 212-229.
    9. Boosey, Luke & Brookins, Philip & Ryvkin, Dmitry, 2019. "Contests between groups of unknown size," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 756-769.
    10. Ryvkin, Dmitry & Drugov, Mikhail, 2020. "The shape of luck and competition in winner-take-all tournaments," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 15(4), November.
    11. Dmitry Ryvkin & Mikhail Drugov, 2017. "Tournaments," Working Papers wp2017_03_02, Department of Economics, Florida State University.
    12. Jiao, Qian & Ke, Changxia & Liu, Yang, 2022. "When to disclose the number of contestants: Theory and experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 193(C), pages 146-160.
    13. Luke Boosey & Philip Brookins & Dmitry Ryvkin, 2020. "Information Disclosure in Contests with Endogenous Entry: An Experiment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(11), pages 5128-5150, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Boosey, Luke & Brookins, Philip & Ryvkin, Dmitry, 2017. "Contests with group size uncertainty: Experimental evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 212-229.
    2. Arye L. Hillman & Ngo Van Long, 2017. "Rent Seeking: The Social Cost of Contestable Benefits," CESifo Working Paper Series 6462, CESifo.
    3. Arye Hillman & Ngo Van Long, 2017. "The social cost of contestable benefits," CIRANO Working Papers 2017s-11, CIRANO.
    4. Emmanuel Dechenaux & Dan Kovenock & Roman Sheremeta, 2015. "A survey of experimental research on contests, all-pay auctions and tournaments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(4), pages 609-669, December.
    5. Gu, Yiquan & Hehenkamp, Burkhard & Leininger, Wolfgang, 2019. "Evolutionary equilibrium in contests with stochastic participation: Entry, effort and overdissipation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 469-485.
    6. Nava Kahana & Doron Klunover, 2015. "A note on Poisson contests," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 165(1), pages 97-102, October.
    7. Hoffmann, Magnus & Kolmar, Martin, 2017. "Distributional preferences in probabilistic and share contests," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 120-139.
    8. Kim, Bara & Yoo, Seung Han, 2021. "Population uncertainty and revealing contestants," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    9. Kimbrough, Erik O. & Rubin, Jared & Sheremeta, Roman M. & Shields, Timothy W., 2015. "Commitment problems in conflict resolution," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 33-45.
    10. Llorente-Saguer, Aniol & Sheremeta, Roman M. & Szech, Nora, 2023. "Designing contests between heterogeneous contestants: An experimental study of tie-breaks and bid-caps in all-pay auctions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    11. Sheremeta, Roman, 2014. "Behavior in Contests," MPRA Paper 57451, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Llorente-Saguer, Aniol & Sheremeta, Roman & Szech, Nora, 2016. "Designing Contests Between Heterogeneous Contestants: An Experimental Study of Tie-Breaks and Bid-Caps in All-Pay Auctions," MPRA Paper 71202, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Luke Boosey & Philip Brookins & Dmitry Ryvkin, 2020. "Information Disclosure in Contests with Endogenous Entry: An Experiment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(11), pages 5128-5150, November.
    14. Roman M. Sheremeta, 2018. "Behavior In Group Contests: A Review Of Experimental Research," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(3), pages 683-704, July.
    15. Sheremeta, Roman, 2014. "Behavioral Dimensions of Contests," MPRA Paper 57751, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Jia, Hao & Sun, Ching-jen, 2021. "The optimal entry fee-prize ratio in Tullock contests," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    17. Jiao, Qian & Ke, Changxia & Liu, Yang, 2022. "When to disclose the number of contestants: Theory and experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 193(C), pages 146-160.
    18. Alex Dickson & Ian MacKenzie & Petros G Sekeris, 2020. "Rent dissipation in share contests," Working Papers 2014, University of Strathclyde Business School, Department of Economics.
    19. Lim, Wooyoung & Matros, Alexander, 2009. "Contests with a stochastic number of players," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 584-597, November.
    20. Anya Samek & Roman M. Sheremeta, 2017. "Selective Recognition: How to Recognize Donors to Increase Charitable Giving," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 55(3), pages 1489-1496, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Contests; Population uncertainty; Rent dissipation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:141:y:2016:i:c:p:8-10. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.