Authors:

  • Eric Werker

Excerpt

Are economic rents good for development? Evidence from the manufacturing sector. Eric Werker, December 2018, Paper, "Are rents, or excess profits, good for development? Rents could induce firms to lobby or bribe governments to preserve the status quo; on the other hand, rents may promote growth by giving firms the needed funds to make investments in fixed capital or research and development. To test this question empirically, we use a panel of manufacturing data at the industry-country-year level, and measure rents by the mark-up ratio. We find that the relationship between rents and growth is strongly negative, with the results being primarily driven by the poorer countries (or those with worse institutions) in the sample." Link