RENT SEEKING FOR PURE PUBLIC GOODS: WEALTH AND GROUP'S SIZE HETEROGENEITY

We study how between-group wealth and size asymmetries affect aggregate rent-seeking efforts when two groups compete for the allocation of a pure public good. Unlike with previous analyses on between-group asymmetries, we measure the utility cost of rent-seeking in terms of the loss in private consumption an individual faces when contributing to this activity. Our main result is that fewer between-group asymmetries do not necessarily imply greater aggregate rent-seeking efforts. The result is at odds with the commonly held notion that the more homogeneous the contestants in a static rent-seeking model, the greater the aggregate rent-seeking efforts.