DEMOCIDE AND GENOCIDE AS RENT-SEEKING ACTIVITIES

Murder of the population by the state has been common historically and in modern times. I estimate a demand function for state-sponsored mur der and find that it obeys the law of demand. The main focus of the pa per is estimation of the change in the growth path of economies that p ractice democide relative to those that do not. On average, the rent-s eeking loss associated with democide is about a 20 percent loss of wea lth.