Some Empirical Evidence on Rent-Seeking

R L Beck and J M Connolly

Public Choice, 1996, vol. 87, issue 1-2, 19-33

Abstract: The authors test for the capture of net gains by winners in rent-seeking competitions using the most prominent announcements of government favors in the Canadian economy over a twelve-year period. Stockholders' returns are not significantly different from zero. One possible explanation is that government assists firms only when assistance creates political gains. Refusing to transfer economic rents to firms maximizes the resources available to serve political purposes. This kind of behavior by government officials would imply that government has market power, which is consistent with several well-known theories of government. Copyright 1996 by Kluwer Academic Publishers

Date: 1996
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:87:y:1996:i:1-2:p:19-33

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... ce/journal/11127/PS2

Access Statistics for this article

Public Choice is currently edited by WIlliam F. Shughart II

More articles in Public Choice from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().