Committees and rent-seeking effort under probabilistic voting

Congleton (1984) shows that a rent awarded by a committee results in smaller aggregate rent-seeking expenditures than a similar rent awarded by a single administrator. This note modifies Congleton's model by considering a model in which voting is probabilistic instead of deterministic. I show that the relative magnitudes of rent-seeking expenditures could go either way depending on the relative weighted sensitivities (to rent-seeking efforts) of the committee and the single administrator. I show how the distribution of voting powers of committee members affects rent-seeking efforts. I also examine the case where there is some probability that the rent may not be awarded, if the committee is unable to reach a majority decision. My results diverge from Congleton (1984) because of the absence of majoritarian cycles in my model.