Reason-Giving and Rent-Seeking

Edward H. Stiglitz ()
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Edward H. Stiglitz: Cornell University

Chapter Chapter 6 in Law and Economic Development, 2023, pp 131-160 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Political theorists and legal scholars have long regarded the practice of reason-giving as core to democratic and legal enterprises. Democratic theorists, for instance, contend that public reason-giving is essential to the deliberative process through which we form a self-regulating political community, constraining debate and public actions to be relatively other-regarding. If this claim is right, in theory reason-giving should reduce the incentives to engage in rent-seeking. Here, I establish this relationship conceptually and examine it empirically by studying a unique reform to reason-giving requirements in federal procurement. I find that requiring public officials to offer reasons for their actions is associated with less overall rent-seeking, as measured by campaign contributions—decreasing both the amount of money contributed to campaigns as well as the apparent sophistication of campaign contribution strategies.

Keywords: Reason-giving; Self-regulation; Rent-seeking; Public officials; Federal procurement; Campaign contributions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-031-24938-9_6

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-24938-9_6

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