The Social Cost of Rent-Seeking: First Estimates

Laband, D. N.; Sophocleus, John P.

doi:10.1332/251569298x15668907344316

Cited by 18 publications

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“…al. 1991) or banking activity (Laband and Sophocleus 1988) are wholly productive. The improbability of such a sharp occupational dichotomy between unproductive and wealth-creating activities suggests that the extent to which lawyering is growth-dampening will depend upon the relative unproductiveness of lawyering compared to other occupations (Epp 1992: 594).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Datta and Nugent (1986) then produced an empirical study of 'adversary activity' which provided tentative confirmation that legal activities were likely to lower profits and investment, concluding that countries needed to reduce the numbers of individuals involved in resolving conflicts, thereby freeing up highly qualified people for more economically productive activities. Laband and Sophocleus (1988) used the number of practicing lawyers as a proxy for the level of politico-legal rent-seeking, calculating that the associated economic loss came to US$ 902.5 billion, equivalent to 22.6 per cent of US 1985 nominal GNP (or US$ 2.9 million per lawyer). Murphy et al (1991) extended the analysis to 91 countries and used data on college law enrolments as an indicator of the talent allocated to rent-seeking (engineering enrolments reflecting entrepreneurial endeavour).…”

Section: The Unproductive Labour Argumentmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Legislating for Economic Sclerosis: Are Lawyers a Baleful Influence on Growth Rates?

Cameron

Thorpe

2004

Kyklos

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William Easterly, an ex-World Bank economist and widely respected growth theorist, in recently noting that skilled individuals may elect to pursue occupations that redistribute income rather than enhance growth, referred to 'the somewhat whimsical piece of evidence … that economies with lots of lawyers grow more slowly than economies with lots of engineers'. The remark alluded to an assertion by the Bush-Quayle camp during the 1992 Presidential campaign that too many lawyers were prejudicial to US economic growth, and sparked a heated debate that was played out in the Wall Street Journal and a number of academic journals at the time. A decade later, Easterly's rejoinder has prompted us to examine the view that occupational capture (the capture of talent by particular occupations) can contribute to economic stagnation, by revisiting the notion of lawyers as negative externalities to the growth process. Copyright WWZ and Helbing & Lichtenhahn Verlag AG 2004.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Unproductive Labour Argumentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Legislating for Economic Sclerosis: Are Lawyers a Baleful Influence on Growth Rates?

Cameron

Thorpe

2004

Kyklos

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“…69-92. Laband, D. N., Sophocleus, J. P. (1988). The social cost of rent-seeking: First estimates // Public Choice, 58(3), 269-275.…”

Section: список литературыmentioning

confidence: 99%

Оn Directions New Industrial Revolution in a Digital Economy: Context-the Substantial Aspect

Ipatova¹

2019

JER

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In this article the author touches upon the problem of realization of the processes of reformation of the existing system of economic relations, realized in the conditions of actualization of digitalization of production and economic processes. The peculiarity of the approach to neoindustrialization is the understanding of this process not only from the standpoint of the focus on the use of modern material and technical base, qualitative improvement of conditions and production technologies, but also on the need to understand the specifics of new working conditions, which consist in the need to rebuild public consciousness to create prerequisites for a new human quality in the mechanism of «digitization» of economic relations. This circumstance requires the revision of the implemented instruments of industrial policy not only to take into account the interests of the owners themselves, but also to study the potential of society for the perception of the innovations used. In view of the above, the author considers neoindustrialization in the conditions of the digital economy as a General process affecting the interests of the aggregate of participants in both economic and social activities, and, as a consequence, presupposes the consideration of various aspects that take place in the reform of economic relations under the influence of modern trends of neo-analysis. The article analyzes the content of neoindustrialization processes in the context of the implementation of this process in relation to the conditions of the digital economy. The author proposes to consider the analyzed multidimensional process: not only from the standpoint of the use of technological innovation, but through the characteristics of the changes of society under the influence of neoindustrial. Particular attention is paid to the context-content aspect in the analysis of the processes of neoindustrialization, based on the consistency and subordination of the structural elements of the mechanism under consideration.

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“…Following this, the social cost of lobbying was measured. For example Laband and Sophocleus (1988) showed that profit-seeking drastically reduced the growth of the American GNP by 22.6 percent for the year 1985 (also see Zimmermann, 2009a on this point, andDesai andOlofsgard, 2011, for the specific case of developing countries).…”

Section: Classical Analysis Of the Effects On Social Welfarementioning

confidence: 99%

Are political support-driven policies always bad? The case of large interest groups

Lagadec

2014

Eur J Gov Econ

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The action of active interest groups (lobbies) has been traditionally considered to be a source of harmful waste for the economy which reduces social well-being. Can this analysis be adapted to the case of large unorganised groups which do not ask for anything directly? Or, on the contrary, does the setting up of policies which improve the situation of these large groups permit an improvement in social welfare? We start from classical (public choice) analyses of lobbying and rent-seeking developed since the 1970s, closely linked with the hypothesis of re-election-seeking politicians, before extending our analysis also to consider non-sector-specific policies and passive interest groups (notably those too large to meet the Olsonian condition of efficient collective action). Then the research question to be answered becomes whether promoting the interest of large groups can deliver social welfare as defined by the incumbent’s social welfare function. We refer to the political cycles’ evidence to consider that no social welfare objective can motivate the favouring of large groups.

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The Social Cost of Rent-Seeking: First Estimates

Cited by 18 publications

References 0 publications

Legislating for Economic Sclerosis: Are Lawyers a Baleful Influence on Growth Rates?

Legislating for Economic Sclerosis: Are Lawyers a Baleful Influence on Growth Rates?

Оn Directions New Industrial Revolution in a Digital Economy: Context-the Substantial Aspect

Are political support-driven policies always bad? The case of large interest groups

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