On Opposition to Rent Seeking: Implications for Developing Countries.

A model is developed to study the implications of the presence of rent-opposing activities for the measurement of deadweight losses and for cost-benefit analysis. The analysis provides an upper bound on the social cost of rent-seeking in the presence of potential rent-opposers. Remarks are offered on the interactions between merits and skills in the determination of success in rent-seeking, and on the pervasiveness of corruption in developing economies. Copyright 1998 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd