Scandinavian Working Papers in Economics

SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance,
Stockholm School of Economics

No 77: Rent, Risk and Replication. Political Contests and Preference Adaptation

Karl Wärneryd ()
Additional contact information
Karl Wärneryd: Department of Economics, Postal: Stockholm School of Economics, Box 6501, 113 83 Stockholm, Sweden.

Abstract: We study the long-run behavior of an economy where agents who are heterogeneous with respect to risk attitudes can either earn a certain income or enter a risky rent seeking contest. In contrast with standard evolutionary game theory, we distinguish between utility and material payoffs, and allow the population distribution of preferences to evolve over time in response to material payoffs. We show that, in particular, initial distributions with full support converge to stationary states where all types may still be present, risk lovers specialize in rent seeking, and the available rents are perfectly dissipated.

Keywords: Risk attitudes; rent seeking; evolution

JEL-codes: C72; D72; D80

27 pages, October 1995

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Published as
Karl Wärneryd, (2002), 'Rent, Risk and Replication. Preference Adaptation in Winner-take-all Markets', Games and Economic Behavior, vol 41, pages 344-364

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