rent seeking
1
9.2
- noun
- /rɛnt ˈsiːkɪŋ/
- Specialized
:
búsqueda de rentas
- In this study, rent-seeking activity is treated as a latent variable.
- rent seeking activity
- rent seeking groups
- rent seeking behavior
It's not like the price gouging or the rent seeking of a traditional monopoly.
- It's not like the price gouging or the rent seeking of a traditional monopoly.
Examples
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In the political sphere, rent seeking often manifests when groups try to secure favorable regulations without providing any new value to society.
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Accordingly, there is considerable rent-seeking in the regulatory process.
Academic text (2016) -
The reason is simple because we associate in our mind rent seeking behavior with monopoly, right?
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But we have allowed these rent seeking politicians to extract everything from the productive people.
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Similarly, the dominant view about how rent seeking takes place is that it occurs post-election.
Blog text (1) -
Their position is entrenched in the belief that all public actions involve rent seeking, a notion that perhaps has some truth.
Academic text (2004) -
So what you want is a system that makes rent seeking unprofitable and otherwise leaves people free to innovate and discover by whatever process.
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Finally, rent-seeking retards the rate of economic growth: Gamma 6 < 0.
Academic text (1999) -
But it's worse than that: rent seeking distorts resource allocations and makes the economy weaker.
Blog text (21) -
The current system of taxation is complicated and ambiguous, leading to widespread corruption and rent-seeking.
Academic text (2016)
Synonyms
1
9.5
To try to get money or benefits without creating new value by using power to change rules
1
9.9
A very strong desire to take more than is fair
A person or business that tries to get unfairly large amounts of money by taking advantage of a crisis
Using people or things for your own benefit without giving anything back
How Harmful
355
4.8
- Formal
6
9.4
- Specialized
1
9.2
1
5.3
Surface Forms
Morphology
Although 'rent' and 'seeking' are individually transparent, their combination is a specialized economic term whose meaning ('attempting to capture unearned income by manipulating rules or policy') is not derivable from the everyday senses of the parts. A B1 learner is likely to interpret it as 'looking for a rental property' or 'trying to get rent money', so the technical idiomatic sense is unpredictable without prior exposure.
Etymology
Rent seeking comes from an older idea of rent as money someone gets just for owning land or a right, and seeking meaning trying to get that money. Picture a person using power or rules to take pay from others instead of making a new product, so rent seeking means 'trying to gain money without creating new value'.