Rent-Seeking Activities, Misallocation, and Innovation in Argentina

Gabriel Zaourak

No 9293, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: What is the efficiency cost of rent-seeking activities in Argentina? This paper quantitatively shows that rent-seeking activities in the form of bribes have aggregate effects through two channels. First, they generate misallocation of resources across firms because they prevent resources from flowing to the most productive firms, reallocating resources instead to those that succeed at rent-seeking. Second, such activities affect the allocation of resources within firms because rent-seeking drives resources away from innovation. These two channels can help in understanding why Argentina has more misallocation across firms and less investment in research and development, compared with developed economies, explaining a sizable portion of Argentina's low productivity.

Keywords: International Trade and Trade Rules; Employment and Unemployment; Innovation; National Governance; Government Policies; Quality of Life&Leisure; Social Analysis; Youth and Governance; Labor Markets; Rural Labor Markets (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-06-23
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-tid
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9293

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