November 14th, a Seminar on Rent-Seeking Theory and Anti-Corruption Studies was held at Unirule Office in Beijing. About 100 papers were submitted to this conference, and 21 were selected by the committee that were later presented on the meeting. Some of the experts attending the meeting include MAO Yushi, ZHANG Weiying, MENG Chang, LU Xianxiang, HUANG Shaoan, YAO Zhongqiu ,SHENG Hong, FENG Xingyuan, ZHAO Nong, YANG Qijing, LIU Yejin, ZHU Junsheng, GUAN Weili, etc.. 
Professor YAO Zhongqiu opened the seminar. He said that it was useful to imply empirical and theoretical truth on eradicating the smog of the society, i.e., corruption. Mr. MAO Yushi gave an opening speech. He said it was key for us to follow great pioneers of rent-seeking theory, such as Tullock and Buchannan. Even though Rent-Seeking has become an ordinary word in daily life in China, studies and research was not enough. He hoped this seminar would push forward research in this area.  To units were held in the morning. Unit 1 was moderated by Professor ZHAO Weiying, and Unit 2 by Professor HUANG Shaoan. Professor LU Xianxiang presented “China’s Innovation in the Constraints of Rent-Seeking: An Institution-Based Analysis”. He started with a brief introduction to Tullock and other scholars’ depiction of China’s institutions. He thought what China and India had in common was to involve the elites of the society in rent-seeking. Rent-seeking not only deters the transformation of innovation, but also differentiate in kinds, e.g., public rent-seeking behaviors are more harmful than private ones. The top-down innovation institution was a system of rent-seeking, which could in turn hinder real innovation.  Professor HUANG Shaoan commented that the current resource allocation system was set up around government officials. The innovation behaviors were led by power, which was the systematic flaw. 
Professor SHENG Hong presented his general rent-seeking theory. He thought there might be rent-seeking is different resources were put to the same use, or different uses were found for the same resources. In general, he agreed with Steven Cheung that rent could be roughly considered income. Therefore, the dissipation of rent is the loss of income, i.e., the loss of social welfare. Regulations upon market transactions would bring about rent dissipation, therefore, informal contract under regulative circumstances may maintain the dissipating rent. 
Professor MENG Chang pointed out that there were two kinds of rent, the productive rent and the non-productive rent. Therefore, the dissipation of rent could be categorized into to kinds, the former being innovation in Schumpeter’s sense, the latter being government regulation policies. And the productive rent-seeking should be encouraged as it was beneficial for the society. 
Professor ZHANG Xuan presented “Rent of Bribe, Time, and Corporate Productivity: Empirical Data from Chinese Enterprises”. From a positive perspective using econometrical methods, in the premise of constant institutional factor, brides given to the government by enterprises were found to promote the enterprises’ productivity, which hinted the lubricant effect of corruption for the economy. In the meantime, bride rent promotes productivity, while property rights protection failed to show prominent effect in reducing time rent. Totally 4 Pages,Now on the 1 Page 1 2 3 4 |
