Learning to rent–seek: collective action and in–kind benefits in the public sector

Abstract

The present provides alternative specifications for public choice models that analyse the determinants of a variety of in–kind efforts to obtain monopoly rights (or rent–seek). A variable relating to the age of states in the USA provides suggestive empirical evidence of the importance of societal stability in forming interest–group coalitions, as suggested by the work of Mancur Olson. In fact, when previous models are respecified to include ‘age since statehood’, political determinants of elegant restaurant dining, golfing excursions and limo services – all in–kind rent–seeking perquisites – become more evident and important.