{"title":"Rent dissipation in difference-form contests","authors":"Ratul Lahkar","doi":"10.1016/j.mathsocsci.2024.09.002","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>We consider rent-seeking contests where the impact function, which measures how much impact effort has, takes an exponential form. The resulting contest success function (CSF) is a difference-form CSF and the contest is a difference-form contest. Rent dissipation measures the rent lost due to rent-seeking. Cost functions in our difference-form contest are also exponential. We establish the equivalence between such difference-form contests and Tullock contests. We then solve finite-player symmetric difference-form contests in closed form. But if there are asymmetries, the contest cannot be solved. We, therefore, approximate an asymmetric difference-form contest with a large population contest, which can be solved. Rent dissipation in the large population contest is the ratio of the elasticity of the impact function to that of the cost function. Hence, this ratio also approximates rent dissipation in a finite-player contest.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":51118,"journal":{"name":"Mathematical Social Sciences","volume":"132 ","pages":"Pages 40-48"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5000,"publicationDate":"2024-09-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Mathematical Social Sciences","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165489624000842","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
We consider rent-seeking contests where the impact function, which measures how much impact effort has, takes an exponential form. The resulting contest success function (CSF) is a difference-form CSF and the contest is a difference-form contest. Rent dissipation measures the rent lost due to rent-seeking. Cost functions in our difference-form contest are also exponential. We establish the equivalence between such difference-form contests and Tullock contests. We then solve finite-player symmetric difference-form contests in closed form. But if there are asymmetries, the contest cannot be solved. We, therefore, approximate an asymmetric difference-form contest with a large population contest, which can be solved. Rent dissipation in the large population contest is the ratio of the elasticity of the impact function to that of the cost function. Hence, this ratio also approximates rent dissipation in a finite-player contest.
期刊介绍：
The international, interdisciplinary journal Mathematical Social Sciences publishes original research articles, survey papers, short notes and book reviews. The journal emphasizes the unity of mathematical modelling in economics, psychology, political sciences, sociology and other social sciences.
Topics of particular interest include the fundamental aspects of choice, information, and preferences (decision science) and of interaction (game theory and economic theory), the measurement of utility, welfare and inequality, the formal theories of justice and implementation, voting rules, cooperative games, fair division, cost allocation, bargaining, matching, social networks, and evolutionary and other dynamics models.
Papers published by the journal are mathematically rigorous but no bounds, from above or from below, limits their technical level. All mathematical techniques may be used. The articles should be self-contained and readable by social scientists trained in mathematics.
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