The First U.S. Food Stamp Program

An Example of Rent Seeking and Avoiding

Bibliographic Data

ID9533598
AuthorsCharles D Delorme, Charles Delorme (University of Georgia, corresponding author), David R Kamerschen (University of Georgia), David C Redman (University of Georgia)
Year1992
Volume51
Issue4
Pages421-421
Publication date1992-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Journal of Economics and Sociology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-9246 • E-ISSN: 1536-7150
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1536-7150.1992.tb02726.x
OpenAlexW1997665345
LanguageEN
Citations received2

A bstract . Rent seeking involves the wasteful expenses incurred to secure, acquire, or maintain a monopoly position. Rent avoiding involves the expenditures undertaken to avoid the imposition of rent‐seeking costs. Each represents a social cost of Tullock rectangle loss in addition to the dead‐weight or Harberger triangle loss that combined to form the Harberger‐Tullock trapezoid social cost. The first Food Stamp Program in the United States came about through the rent‐seeking and/or rent‐avoiding efforts of farmers, grocers, bankers, and other economic agents and did not lead to the promotion of social welfare. The evidence of these self‐interested efforts was gleaned from articles in the New York Times and government documents. The first Food Stamp Program also fits the economic theory of regulation developed by Stigler, Jordan, Peltzman and others, and it involved imposed costs on economic agents as the program evolved

Deadweight loss · Economics · Food Stamp Program · Food stamps · Government (linguistics · Market economy · Microeconomics · Monopoly · Position (finance · Promotion (chess · Public economics · Rent-seeking · Social cost · Social Welfare · Welfare · Economic Theory and Institutions · Finance · Law

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub