Rent Seeking: Some Conceptual Problems and Implications

There is an implicit assumption in the literature that rent-seeking behavior can be objectively identified and that waste due to rent seeking can, at least in principle, be measured. The problem of identifying rent-seeking activity under real world conditions is shown in this article to be similar to that of determining monopoly waste and other market inefficiencies. It follows that rent-seeking waste can only be identified by substituting the observer’s own standard of value.

Nature of Capital, The: A Rejoinder

The Quarterly Journal of Economics, November 1907, 22.1, pp. 28-47.

SUMMARY: The identity of capital and capital goods: is it admitted by Professor Clark? A difference as to knowing the existence and finding the explanation of the return on capital, A question of method: shall a theory of distribution confine itself to the present, or must it reach back to the past? The synchronizing effect of “capital” considered once more.

---