Rent Seeking,

by Gordon Tullock (1993)

This is a succinct but comprehensive account of the research programme in rent seeking launched by Gordon Tullock's argument that the availability of monopoly rents through government encourages self-seeking individuals to waste economic resources in competitive bidding for those rents.

Rent Seeking reviews each of the contributions for which Professor Tullock is famous, including his basic insight, the cost of transfers, competition for aid, the political market in rent seeking, efficient rent seeking, the transitional gains trap, and the cost of rent seeking, and shows how these insights have triggered a burgeoning research literature. Gordon Tullock skilfully draws out the dangerous implications of rent seeking behavior for private property rights. In characteristic fashion, he returns to his path-breaking work on the economic theory of constitutions in search of novel ways to secure the right to life, liberty and property through a reinforced constitutional republic. Both for the specialist scholar and for the new initiate, this is a great instructive essay.

David N. Laband, Auburn University. Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XXXIII, 835-836 (June 1995)

"By way of illustrating the economic costs of the Faustian bargain implied by the relinquishment of individual liberty in favor of a central authority that is granted power to secure private property rights, Gordon Tullock offers a thorough, concise review of the literature on rent seeking."

David Schap, College of Holy Cross, Public Choice, 82: 193-196 (March 1995)

"Tullock's chapter, Rent Seeking can be variously described as wide-ranging; at times idiosyncratic, polemic, and inconsistent; yet always engaging, learned, and insightful - in short, quintessentially Tullockian!"