Rent-seeking measurement by means of labour unrest in trade-related adjustment processes. A note

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to discuss an empirical method to estimate the social costs originated by the rent-seeking behaviour in declining industries. Due to competition from imports, the factors of one particular industry undergo losses in real income, and have incentives to seek protection. In the case of declining industries, workers play a central role and the losses in output due to strikes are used to quantify the social cost of rent-seeking. This approach is applied to the case of Spanish coal mining.