Political pension
A political pension is an income received from the state or bureaucratic institutions without doing anything in return. This can be achieved, for example, through direct state transfers or through state discrimination against competitors. In general, a pension is understood in economics to be the amount that the owner of a resource receives over and above his opportunity costs for using it. With the increasing influence of the economy on the legislature, the contradicting concept of political rent becomes more relevant, the costs that arise not only for real resources, but also for artificially created conditions.
Rent-Seeking
When rent-seeking (from English rent , lease ',' Rent ', + to seek , seek', 'desire') or pursuit of additional pensions is in the neoclassical theory called economic actors conduct that aims to bring about state intervention in the market-mediated allocation of resources in order to be able to appropriate artificially created pension income. To put it simply, one encompasses activities of individuals or interest groups that exert influence in the political process. If rent-seeking is not associated with bribery of decision-makers (in the sense of corruption), the process is also known as lobbying .
An example of successful rent-seeking would be if an entrepreneur obtained a license for a casino by bribing an official, which he could set up in a building that would otherwise only be used as a warehouse. The opportunity costs lie in the lost rental income for the warehouse.
Rent seeking is an unproductive activity such as war and defense. This means that productive and welfare-increasing activities (such as production, services, trade, etc.) are abandoned or resources that are otherwise sensibly used are wasted. Rent-seeking that is successful is therefore individually rational and beneficial, but collectively irrational and damaging to the economy.
The greed effect
As a yaw effect ( English voracity effect ) refers to a decline in productivity due to conflict-prone rent-seeking activities at welfare-creating reforms. Political rent seeking increases with the size of the reform pension. Figuratively speaking, this means that more resources are used to secure the largest possible proportion of the cake to be distributed. The resources are thus diverted from productive activities to unproductive ones (i.e. influencing, lobbying, attack and defense). Overall, the positive reform is weakened by the negative effect of wasting resources.
Individual evidence
- ↑ The phenomenon was first described by Gordon Tullock in 1967 ( Gordon Tullock: The Welfare Costs of Tariffs, Monopolies, and Theft . In: Western Economic Journal . 5, No. 3, 1967, pp. 224-232. Doi : 10.1111 / j .1465-7295.1967.tb01923.x . ) The term rent-seeking was coined in 1974 by Anne O. Krueger . Anne Krueger: The Political Economy of the Rent-Seeking Society . In: American Economic Review , vol. 64, issue 3, 1974, pp. 291-303, JSTOR 1808883
- ↑ This is also called "rent seeking before the event" to distinguish it from the fact that political decisions that have already been made are used for economic decisions. Rent-seeking after the event . In: Qinglian He: China in the modernization trap. Hamburger Edition, Hamburg 2006, p. 57.