Janine O'Flynn (University of Melbourne): Publications - PhilPeople

University of Melbourne

Regular Faculty

Parkville, Victoria, Australia

26

Economic Rent, Rent-Seeking Behavior, and the Case of Privatized Incarceration
with Daniel Halliday

In David Boonin (ed.), Palgrave Handbook of Philosophy and Public Policy, Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 455-467. 2018.

The concept of economic rent is among the oldest in political economy. This reflects the fact that economies have always included parties whose income appears more parasitic than productive. The concept of rent-seeking refers to the efforts of parties seeking to secure such income by way of gaining influence over economic regulation or otherwise gaining favors from government. In spite of its intuitiveness, however, it has proven difficult to precisely distinguish rent from other categories of i…Read more
The concept of economic rent is among the oldest in political economy. This reflects the fact that economies have always included parties whose income appears more parasitic than productive. The concept of rent-seeking refers to the efforts of parties seeking to secure such income by way of gaining influence over economic regulation or otherwise gaining favors from government. In spite of its intuitiveness, however, it has proven difficult to precisely distinguish rent from other categories of income. This chapter seeks to acquaint readers with this problem. The privatization of incarceration is then supplied as an important case study in current rent-seeking behavior.

Government, Misc