View source for Rent-seeking

[[Rent-seeking]] is a concept used to describe the activity of individuals or firms who attempt to obtain or maintain wealth-transfers, primarily with the help of the state.<ref>Pasour, E.C. [http://mises.org/journals/rae/pdf/rae1_1_8.pdf "Rent Seeking: Some Conceptual Problems and Implications"], 1983, page 1.</ref> More specifically instead of making a productive contribution to an economy, a rent-seeker attempts to obtain benefits for themselves by manipulating the political environment.<ref name="RentSeeking">Henderson, David. [http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/RentSeeking.html "Rent Seeking"], Accessed October 2011.</ref> Rent-seeking has also been defined as the process whereby one is able to obtain a greater rent, i.e. return, than would have been possible on the free market, through activities such as government lobbying or taking advantage of other connections to the state.<ref>[[Thomas DiLorenzo]]. "How Capitalism Saved America: The Untold History of Our Country, from the Pilgrims to the Present", 2005, page 126.</ref> Rent-seeking is seen as unproductive or a wasteful activity, as it results in wealth being transferred from productive individuals and firms to the rent-seekers. Examples of rent-seeking include things such as obtaining government [[bailout|bailouts]], [[subsidy|subsidies]] or having the state enact and enforce [[barrier to entry|barriers to entry]]. The formulation of the concept is credited to Gordon Tullock, while the idea of the phrase "rent-seeking" is credited to Anne Krueger.<ref name="RentSeeking" />

Rent seeking is distinguished from [[corruption]] in that rent seeking is legal and corruption is not. Both are searches for privilege and personal gain through the political process.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://mises.org/daily/2269|title=The Economics of Prohibition|date=15 September 2006|author=Thornton, Mark}}</ref>


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[[Category:Concepts]]
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