Directly Unproductive, Profit-Seeking (DUP) Activities

Abstract

This paper propses directly unproductive, profit-seeking (DUP) activities as a general concept that embraces a wide range of recently analyzed economic activities, including the subset of rent-seeking activities considered by Krueger. It then proceeds to provide a synthesis and generalization of the welfare-theoretic analysis of such activities by developing a fourfold categorization of cases depending on the levels of distortions before and after the DUP activity. Thus a unification and overview of the subject are achieved.