I present a model of repeated electoral competition between two parties. A part the electorate votes retrospectively and considers amount rent-seeking by incumbent party, while prospective voters follow probabilistic party preferences when casting their votes. show that it is possible to distinguish effects incumbency advantage punishment on minimum level consistent with equilibrium. As long as...

We present the first constant-factor approximation algorithm for network design with multiple commodities andeconomies of scale. We consider the rent-or-buy problem, a type of multicommodity buy-at-bulk network design in which there are two ways to install capacity on any givenedge. Capacity can be rented, with cost incurred on a per-unit of capacity basis, or bought, which allows u...

This study addresses the product investment decision faced by firms in the rent-to-own industry. In this setting, a customer arrives according to a random process and requests one unit of a product to rent (and eventually own should he/she choose to make all the required payments). At the time of request, if the product is available in inventory, the firm enters into a contractual agreement (by...

Between 1999 and 2006, there were two episodes during which inflation in the Rent index in the CPI diverged markedly from inflation in the index for Owner’s Equivalent Rent (OER); early in 2007, these series began to diverge again. Such divergence often prompts many to question CPI methods. A key difference between these two series is that OER indexes are based upon rents which have received a ...

This paper discusses the optimal firm size in the presence of internal rent seeking. Since firm size has a discouragement effect on the level of individual rent-seeking but also a quantity effect as the number of rent-seekers increases, the interplay of both effects — together with technological considerations — determines whether the employer chooses an inefficiently small or large firm size. ...

This paper considers the effects of rent control on community socioeconomic composition. In particular, do rent controls increase the presence of poor and minority residents in a locale? Theoretically, the effect of rent controls on community composition depends on a tradeoff between lower prices which might favor the disadvantaged and a landlord imposed rationing mechanism which likely does no...