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In this paper we present a model where agents can choose between productive and rent-seeking activities.We consider two governance institutions: autocracy and parliament rule. Under autocracy rent-seeking reflects the taste of the autocrat for such activities. Under parliament rule rent-seeking depends on parliament voting. We show that under parliament rule the size of rentseeking may be larger than under autocracy. This cast doubts on the idea that "rigth" institutions necessarily promote good economic performance. We also show that rent-seekers may be interested in overthrowing autocracy. ; Publicado

In this paper we present a model of an organization where agents can choose between productive and rent-seeking activities. We consider two governance institutions, single ownership and corporate governance or parliament rule. Applications include models of internal organization of a firm, of a kingdom ruled either by an absolute monarch or by the parliament, and location where agents can locate either in the court and become rent-seekers, or in an industrial city and become entrepreneurs. Our main goal is to study the size of rent-seeking activities under the two governance regimes. Under single ownership, rent-seeking reflects the taste of the owner for such activities and the possibilities of extracting rents from productive agents (who finance rent-seeking). The main conclusion of the paper is that, under corporate governance, the size of the rent-seeking sector may be larger than under single ownership despite the fact that in the former nobody has an intrinsic taste for rent-seeking activities.

In this paper we present a partial equilibrium model of tax evasion. Several equilibrium concepts are used to analyze the game of the Government against a single taxpayer.

Contest theory is an important part of game theory used to analyse different types of contests and conflicts. Traditional microeconomic models focus on situations where property rights are well defined, and agents voluntarily trade rights over goods or produce rights for new goods. However, much less focus has been given to other situations where agents do not trade property rights, but rather fight over them. Contests: Theory and Applications presents a state-of-the art discussion of the economics of contests from the perspective of both core theory and applications. It provides a new approach to standard topics in labour, education, welfare and development and introduces areas like voting, industrial organisation, mechanism design, sport, and military conflict. Using elementary mathematics, this book provides a versatile framework for navigating this growing area of study and serves as an essential resource for its wide variety of applications in economics and political science.