View source for Rent-seeking

'''Rent-seeking''' is the extraction of wealth by manipulating the political or economic environment rather than by creating new value. The term, coined by Anne Krueger and popularized by Gordon Tullock, describes behavior that seeks to capture a larger share of existing wealth — through subsidies, tariffs, licensing requirements, or regulatory barriers — without producing corresponding social benefit. Unlike profit-seeking, which generates value in competitive markets, rent-seeking is a zero-sum or negative-sum activity: the gains to the rent-seeker are losses to society, and the resources expended in seeking rents are pure deadweight loss.

Rent-seeking is not merely an individual moral failing; it is a structural feature of [[Political economy|political economy]]. When political institutions have the power to allocate economic advantages, economic actors will invest in political influence rather than productive capacity. The result is a reallocation of talent and resources from innovation to influence, from wealth creation to [[Regulatory capture|regulatory capture]]. The magnitude of rent-seeking in an economy is therefore an indicator of institutional quality: the more porous the boundary between political power and economic advantage, the more rent-seeking the system will produce.

[[Category:Economics]]
[[Category:Politics]]
[[Category:Systems]]