The Rent-Seeking Society - (Selected Works of Gordon Tullock) by Gordon Tullock

Book Synopsis

The fifth volume in The Selected Works of Gordon Tullock consists of six parts, each part expounding on a separate component of the field. Part 1, "Rent Seeking: An Overview," brings together two papers that focus on problems of defining rent-seeking behavior and outline the nature of the ongoing research program in a historical perspective. Part 2, "More on Efficient Rent Seeking," contains four contributions in which Tullock elaborates on his 1980 article on efficient rent seeking. Part 3, "The Environments of Rent Seeking," consists of eight papers that collectively display the breadth of the rent-seeking concept. Part 4, "The Cost of Rent Seeking," comprises seven papers that address several important issues about the cost of rent seeking to society as a whole. Part 5 is Tullock's short monograph Exchanges and Contracts, in which he develops a systematic theory of exchange in political markets. In Part 6, "Future Directions for Rent-Seeking Research," Tullock focuses on the importance of information in the political marketplace.

This work has been carefully constructed to build on the inaugural volume in this collection and to ease students through the field in a clear and concise manner.

Gordon Tullock is Professor Emeritus of Law at George Mason University, where he was Distinguished Research Fellow in the Center for Study of Public Choice and University Professor of Law and Economics. He also taught at the University of South Carolina, the University of Virginia, Rice University, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, and the University of Arizona. In 1966 he founded the journal that became Public Choice and remained its editor until 1990.

Charles K. Rowley was Duncan Black Professor of Economics at George Mason University and a Senior Fellow of the James M. Buchanan Center for Political Economy at George Mason University. He was also General Director of the Locke Institute.

Review Quotes

In economic terms, "rent-seeking" refers to outlays by individuals and interest groups to lobby government for special privileges that ultimately reduce the wealth of society. This volume contains two monographs by Gordon Tullock analyzing this behavior and its consequences: Rent Seeking and Exchanges and Contracts. It also features selected chapters from The Economics of Special Privilege and Rent Seeking. Tullock teaches law and economics at George Mason University.

Reference & Research Book News
August 2005



The fifth volume of Liberty Fund's The Selected Works of Gordon Tullock series, The Rent-Seeking Society is expertly edited by Charles K. Rowley (Duncan Black Professor of Economics, George Mason University) who also provides an informative introduction to this volume of selected papers by economist and academician Gordon Tullock which he wrote between 1954 and 2002. This collection has the specific focus of Tullock's views on the integration of rent seeking (outlays by individuals and interest groups to secure economic rents and privileges through government) into a general public choice model of political markets, the cost of rent seeking to society, and the current status of the field. Of special note are two critically important monographs: "Rent Seeking" and "Exchanges and Contracts", as well as definitive chapters drawn from Tullock's "The Economics of Special Privilege and Rent Seeking". This fifth volume, and all four of its predecessors, are core contributions to academic and professional library reference collections for Economic Studies.

Library Bookwatch
July 2005