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It is now twenty years since the concept of rent-seeking was first devised by Gordon Tullock, though he was not responsible for coining the phrase itself. His initial insight has burgeoned over two decades into a major research program which has had an impact not only on public choice, but also on the related disciplines of economics, political science, and law and economics. The reach of the insight has proved to be universal, with relevance not just for the democracies, but also, and arguably more important, for all forms of autocracy, irrespective of ideological com plexion. It is not surprising, therefore, that this volume is the third edited publication dedicated specifically to scholarship into rent-seeking behavior. The theory of rent-seeking bridges normative and positive analyses of state action. In its normative dimension, rent-seeking scholarship has expanded, enlivened, in some respects turned on its head, the traditional welfare analyses of such features of modern economics as monopoly, externalities, public goods, and trade protection devices. In its positive dimension, rent-seeking contributions have provided an important analy tical perspective from which to understand and to predict the behavior of politicians, interest groups and bureaucrats, the media and the academy within the political market place. This bridge between normative and positive elements of analysis is invaluable in facilitating an understanding of and evaluating the costs of state activity within a consistent paradigm.

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I Perspectives.- 1 Introduction.- 2 Rent-Seeking Versus Directly Unproductive Profit-Seeking Activities.- 3 In Search of Rent-Seeking.- 4 Rents and Rent-Seeking.- II Theoretical Developments.- 5 The Social Costs of Monopoly and Regulation: A Game-Theoretic Analysis.- 6 Risk-Averse Rent Seekers and the Social Cost of Monopoly Power.- 7 Efficient Rent-Seeking Revisited.- 8 Long-Run Equilibrium and Total Expenditures in Rent-Seeking.- 9 Long-Run Equilibrium and Total Expenditures in Rent-Seeking: A Comment.- 10 Rent-Seeking Behavior in the Long-Run.- 11 Free Entry and Efficient Rent-Seeking.- 12 Back to the Bog.- 13 Life Among the Triangles and Trapezoids.- III Applications.- 14 Dispelling the Disinterest in Deregulation.- 15 Rent Extraction and Rent Creation in the Economic Theory of Regulation.- 16 Ideology, Interest Groups, and the Repeal of the Corn Laws.- 17 Rent-Seeking and Trade Protection.- 18 Voters as Investors: A Rent-Seeking Resolution of the Paradox of Voting.- 19 Committees and Rent-Seeking Effort.- 20 Government and its Bureaucracy: A Bilateral Bargaining Versus a Principal-Agent Approach.- 21 Demand-Revealing, Transfers, and Rent-Seeking.- 22 Competing for Aid.- 23 Managerial Rents and Outside Recruitment in the Coasian Firm.- 24 Optimal Taxation in a Rent-Seeking Environment.- 25 Rent-Seeking and Its Implications for Pollution Taxation.- 26 Privatizing the Commons: An Improvement?.- 27 Corporate Chartering: An Exploration in the Economics of Legal Change.- 28 Why Did the Industrial Revolution Occur in England?.- IV Toward Tomorrow.- 29 Agency, Economic Calculation, and Constitutional Construction.- 30 Rent-Seeking in Constitutional Perspective.- 31 Future Directions for Rent-Seeking Research.

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