Rent-seeking with non-identical sharing rules

The primary object of this paper is to examine the role of differential sharing rules within a collective rent-seeking setting on the possible non-existence of Nash equilibrium. Focusing on groups that distribute part of the rent equally among their members and the residual according to relative effort, we show that in rent-seeking societies applying the two polar sharing rules equilibrium never exists. In the general case where groups apply different but not necessarily the polar sharing rules, we study the relationship between group variability in distributing rents and the problem of non-existence of equilibrium in the rent-seeking game.