Influencing Rent-Seeking Contests.
This paper shows that a policy that uniformly increases contestants' effort costs can lead to an increase in total effort. In asymmetric settings, this "levels the playing field" and therefore encourages weaker players (who otherwise would have stayed out) to enter. Paradoxically, a c...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Journal article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2008
|
| _version_ | 1797068794547404800 |
|---|---|
| author | Ritz, R |
| author_facet | Ritz, R |
| author_sort | Ritz, R |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | This paper shows that a policy that uniformly increases contestants' effort costs can lead to an increase in total effort. In asymmetric settings, this "levels the playing field" and therefore encourages weaker players (who otherwise would have stayed out) to enter. Paradoxically, a contest designer whose only objective is to maximize total effort may thus wish to make rent-seeking "more difficult." These results suggest that the often-lamented bureaucratic red tape might in fact be a rational response to the problem of attracting lobbyists to participate in a contest. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-06T22:15:14Z |
| format | Journal article |
| id | oxford-uuid:532af0ae-06ca-432b-9e29-eff497808cb9 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-06T22:15:14Z |
| publishDate | 2008 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:532af0ae-06ca-432b-9e29-eff497808cb92022-03-26T16:29:55ZInfluencing Rent-Seeking Contests.Journal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:532af0ae-06ca-432b-9e29-eff497808cb9EnglishDepartment of Economics - ePrints2008Ritz, RThis paper shows that a policy that uniformly increases contestants' effort costs can lead to an increase in total effort. In asymmetric settings, this "levels the playing field" and therefore encourages weaker players (who otherwise would have stayed out) to enter. Paradoxically, a contest designer whose only objective is to maximize total effort may thus wish to make rent-seeking "more difficult." These results suggest that the often-lamented bureaucratic red tape might in fact be a rational response to the problem of attracting lobbyists to participate in a contest. |
| spellingShingle | Ritz, R Influencing Rent-Seeking Contests. |
| title | Influencing Rent-Seeking Contests. |
| title_full | Influencing Rent-Seeking Contests. |
| title_fullStr | Influencing Rent-Seeking Contests. |
| title_full_unstemmed | Influencing Rent-Seeking Contests. |
| title_short | Influencing Rent-Seeking Contests. |
| title_sort | influencing rent seeking contests |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT ritzr influencingrentseekingcontests |