The costs of rent seeking exceed traditional measures when opportunity cost is considered. When the quantity of resources consumed by rent seeking is large, rent seeking draws consumer surplus out of alternative resource employments. The costs of rent seeking differ in partial and general equilibrium frameworks; Tullock (1989) recognizes this but incorrectly argues that rent seeking costs are t...

This paper studies an overlapping generations model with selfish agents, natural resources and human capital externalities. The initial result is to quantify the economic effects of intergenerational transfers by comparing a complete markets allocation with transfers to an allocation without transfers due to incomplete markets. The core contribution is then to show that a higher resource regene...

We consider one-to-one matching markets in which agents can either be matched as pairs or remain single. In these so-called roommate markets agents are consumers and resources at the same time. Klaus (2010) introduced two new “population sensitivity” properties that capture the effect newcomers have on incumbent agents: competition sensitivity and resource sensitivity. On various roommate marke...

The equity premium puzzle shows that using standard parameters and setup, the Consumption-based Capital Asset Pricing Model’s (CCAPM’s) prediction of the premium associated with systematic risk is out by an order of magnitude. The object of this paper is to consider the implications of each of the broad classes of explanations of the equity premium puzzle for resource allocation, welfare and po...

This paper presents an evolutionary model to explain the widespread diffusion of lifelong monogamous families. The essential condition, unique to humans, is the overlap of children of different ages. Under this condition, together with the salience of paternal investment and fatherhood uncertainty, monogamy attains a greater survivorship than serial monogamy and polygyny. This result is robust ...

There exists no consensus regarding the definition and the measure of persistence. We aim to spark research interests to address the lack of a standard definition. This paper reviews this issue and proposes an informal definition to unemployment persistence. JEL CLASSIFICATION: B41, E24. ∗Department of Economics, College of Business Administration, University of Central Florida. E-mail: omikhai...

Professional norms are supposed to have a central role in the allocation of resources when consumers have inferior information about the characteristics of products. We argue that economic motives are nevertheless important to resource allocation when professional opinions differ. The argument is illustrated with an example from medical care. We find that physicians who experience a shortage of...

This paper studies differences in social mobility between rich and poor families. The paper shows that borrowing constraints retard social mobility among the poor by preventing poor parents from investing optimally in the their children’s human capital. This evidence contradicts several recent studies that argue that innate ability is the overriding determinant of socioeconomic performance in t...

Exploiting a unique data set containing transactions data from a panel of 769 Chinese stateowned enterprises between 1980 and 1989, this paper tests microeconomic implications of a pervasive form of corruption—official diversion of under-priced, in-plan goods to the market. Corruption has the predicted effects on resource allocation. Official under-pricing of in-plan goods, which lowers the mar...

We survey the literature devoted to the study of the problem of allocating an infinitely divisible commodity among agents whose preferences are single-peaked. We formulate a number of normative and strategic requirements on rules, and study their implications when imposed in various combinations. A unique rule emerges as being the best-behaved from a variety of viewpoints: the uniform rule. Key...