Rent Seeking Behaviors in African Countries

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Rent seeking behaviour this refers to an activity of individual or groups with an intention of obtaining favourable or unfavorable outcomes from a political process at the expense of other majority. The incentive for individuals to spend more time and effort in rent seeking will be determined by how attractive it is. A good example of rent seeking behaviour is found in the political context of African countries. Politicians interested in maximizing votes and thus re-election, seek contributions from interest groups to finance their campaigns for public office. Interest groups eager to influence policy outcomes willingly provide the campaign contributions hoping that once elected the law–maker will support special interest legislation to create rents and improve the ability of the interest group to extract those rents from the economy. This process of expending resources in an attempt to influence public policy outcomes is known as rent seeking (Tullock, 1967).
The most common methods used to influence the government or affect policy outcomes are lobbying, bribery and political campa...

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