租:公共政策的意蕴

本文从布坎南关于"租"的论述出发,运用新制度主义方法重新审视"租"的公共政策意蕴,认为公共政策是一种正式制度安排,本质上是关于规定个体和集体选择集的制度安排结构;在制度变迁中,由于不同体制、权利和组织设置而获得的额外收益就是"租",这是公共政策存在的理由;寻租是有成本的,表现为政治交易费用,政府创租和利益集团寻租是不同的两种政治交易过程,表现为公共政策议程;有效率的公共政策选择依赖于制度结构,是制度结构赋予成本和收益以意义。

Rent:Implication for Public Policy

This paper rethinks the implication of "rent" for public policy with new-instituionism approach,starting from James M.Buchanan's discussion about rent.This paper argues: public policy is a kind of formal institutional arrangement,which decides the structure of institutional arrangement of collective and individual choice set essentially.In the course of institutional change,rent is the extra benefit due to different systems,rights and organizations-setting,which is the cause of the existence of public policy;rent-seeking has cost,namely cost of political transaction;government rent-creating and interest group rent-seeking are two kinds of political transactions,namely public policy agenda setting.Effective public policy choice depends on institutional structure,which decides the meaning of cost and benefit.