The “Father of Rent-Seeking”, from Pitt T. Maner III
Gordon Tullock's stint in China was crucial to his rent-seeking insight:
"See, you go into these cultures where people have produced just immense cultural achievements but are living in bitter poverty, and you discover very quickly they have a dominant government and the government is corrupt. Conventionally, economists have argued that a corrupt government doesn't really cost anything because the man who receives the bribe gains what the man who pays the bribe loses. Well, you can't really believe that if you're in China."
His book The Calculus of Consent [online version] is about to celebrate 50 years.
And Prof. Tullock is celebrating 90 today.