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This paper examines the efficiency of the Initial Coin Offering (ICO) market through a search-theoretical lens. Search intensity associated with the process of identifying valuable startups is increasing in market granularity. DLT increases market granularity because asset tokenization lowers entry barriers. Lower-end entrants, however, increase aggregate search intensity but may lack search skills. The resulting search-related inefficiency creates a niche for intermediaries or institutional investors that specialize on search. Consistent with the theory, specialized crypto funds increase ICO market efficiency by reducing search frictions, inter alia, by shortening the time-to-funding and increasing the funding amount. At the same time, crypto funds extract sizable economic rents for their intermediation services. Overall, the study relates to the general trade-off between centralization and decentralization in entrepreneurial finance. It suggests that market frictions specific to early-stage crowdfunding of entrepreneurship may prevent "perfectly" Decentralized Finance (DeFi) markets from functioning efficiently. Plain English Summary: Decentralized Finance (DeFi) markets may require a substantial degree of centralization to function efficiently. We show that centralization in the form of institutional investors that intermediate Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) lead to, first, shorter time periods to reach fundraising goals and, second, higher valuations. In a search-theoretical model, we quantify the extent to which centralization mitigates frictions in a decentralized market. Centralization reduces trading delays and improves decentralized market efficiency especially in times of market downturns and when there is uncertainty about the team or product quality. Thus, the principal implication of our study is that decentralized markets for startups may not be optimal for society. Centralization is valuable because it improves the speed with which entrepreneurs and investors meet, and because it mitigates market frictions arising from asymmetric information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The American Journal of Economics & Sociology's special edition volume on Rent and Labor Exploitation explores various aspects of exploitation in the context of current world events. The papers in this volume shed light on issues such as housing affordability, racial discrimination in banking, ancient labor practices, agribusiness rent extraction, and the impact of higher apartment rent levels on health insurance enrollment. The journal aims to provide a platform for diverse perspectives on economic rent, labor exploitation, and social justice, encouraging readers to draw their own conclusions. [Extracted from the article]

This study investigates how governance and infrastructure moderate the effect of natural resource rents on economic growth using a sample of 110 countries from 2000 to 2018. The empirical evidence is based on panel smooth transition regressions (PSTR). The nexus between economic growth and natural resources is not linear and the underlying non‐linearity is contingent on existing infrastructural and governance levels. Evidence of a "natural resource curse" is apparent in countries with extremely low levels of governance and infrastructural development. The favorable effect of natural resources on economic growth requires a governance threshold of −1.210 and an infrastructure threshold of 2.583, indicating that countries with governance and infrastructure levels higher than these values tend to benefit much more from the wealth of natural resources. Countries identified below the established thresholds are mainly from Africa. Policy implications are discussed with specific emphasis on African countries. Related Articles: Ali, Hamid E., and Shahjahan Bhuiyan. 2022. "Governance, Natural Resources Rent, and Infrastructure Development: Evidence from the Middle East and North Africa." Politics & Policy 50(2): 408–40. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12451. Asiegbu, Martin F., Okey Marcellus Ikeanyibe, Pius Otu Abang, Okwudili Chukwuma Nwosu, and Chuka Eugene Ugwu. 2024. "Natural Resource Fund Governance and the Institutionalization of Rent Seeking in Nigeria's Oil Sector." Politics & Policy 52(1): 169–95. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12579. Ikeanyibe, Okechukwu M. 2018. "Bureaucratic Politics and the Implementation of Liberalization Reforms in Nigeria: A Study of the Unbundling and Reorganization of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation." Politics & Policy 46(2): 263–94. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12249. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article in the journal "Public Choice" discusses the economic analysis of the medieval church, particularly critiquing the work of Ekelund and Tollison. The response piece argues that while there are issues with historical interpretation in Ekelund and Tollison's work, the economic approach to religious organizations is not fully critiqued. The article delves into specific topics such as usury laws and the church's control of marriage, highlighting the application of public choice economics to the study of religion. The author defends the broad approach taken by Ekelund and Tollison and other scholars in the economics of religion, emphasizing the importance of interdisciplinary dialogues in understanding historical institutions. [Extracted from the article]

Research Summary: Without compelling empirical proxies for economic profits, we may need to reconsider the decades of empirical research purporting to inform our theories of competitive advantage. The new stakeholder perspective suggests that stakeholders may capture significant shares of the firm's economic profits that should be incorporated into these proxies. In this article, we propose a novel empirical approach to measuring stakeholder rents and then apply our approach to measure workforce rents across the population of all Belgian firms employing workers from 2008 to 2016. Our results demonstrate substantial variance in workforce rents among firms, with some firms allowing most of the economic profits they generate to flow to the workforce. We discuss the implications of our findings in detail and lay out a pathway for future research. Managerial Summary: This article examines the extent to which companies pay their workforces above (below) what the labor market demands as a way of exploring how much of the company's economic profits go to stakeholders other than shareholders. We demonstrate a wide range of over (under) payments to workforces in a large sample of Belgian firms from 2008 to 2016. One of the important contributions of our paper is developing a method to determine over (under) payments for the workforce, but our method can also be applied to other stakeholders. We hope our work provides an empirical approach for others to explore how stakeholders capture portions of the economic profits that companies create. Video abstract [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the relationship between sustainable economic growth and foreign direct investment (FDI) in Saudi Arabia from 1980 to 2023. The ARDL approach and VECM technique are employed to analyze the short-run and long-run dynamics. The short-run results show mixed effects. Sustainable economic growth has a positive impact on current and one-period lagged FDI but a negative impact on the two periods lagged. Trade openness and infrastructure negatively affect FDI in the short run. Interestingly, oil rents and real economic growth also have negative short-run impacts on FDI, but these effects become positive with a longer lag. Long-run analysis reveals a negative relationship between trade openness, infrastructure, and oil rents with FDI, suggesting a potential crowding-out effect. Trade openness has a positive long-run impact on most variables, including sustainable growth, FDI, real growth, and CO2 emissions. Oil rents also have a positive long-run impact on these variables. This study finds six bidirectional causal relationships in the short run, primarily between trade openness, infrastructure, oil rents, and FDI. Unidirectional causality runs from oil rents, trade openness, exchange rate, sustainable growth, and real growth to FDI and infrastructure. Additionally, CO2 emissions cause FDI, and trade openness causes sustainable growth. While sustainable economic growth benefits FDI in the long run, short-term policies regarding trade openness and infrastructure require reevaluation. Oil revenue and real economic growth may initially deter FDI, but this reverses in the long term. To attract sustainable FDI, policymakers should focus on long-term economic growth strategies and consider reforms in trade and infrastructure policies. A comprehensive FDI strategy that moves beyond oil dependence and leverages trade openness is crucial to long-term economic diversification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a Competitive Leverage model, and apply it to analyze the impact of tariffs on the attitudes of domestic import-competing firms, especially regarding their disincentives to maintain a Competitive Stance against foreign competitors in the domestic market. We propose that tariffs are a disincentive to the pursuit and maintenance of production efficiency in firms and industries. When countries implement tariff protection for their domestic firms, the most common excuse sounds reasonable, except that it is also economically flawed. While the short-run impacts of such a measure might seem plausible, its long-term effects appear to be less than favorable, and may, in fact, turn out to be damaging to the economy. The paper applies the competitive leverage concept in a unique way to highlight how tariffs distort the output levels of domestic firms, and gives an empirical analysis of the model, using USA data to verify the predictions of the model. Particularly, we develop a Cournot-competition type Competitive Leverage model, and use it to examine the role played by tariffs as a disincentive to a typical firm's pursuit and maintenance of production efficiency. The competitive leverage model is formulated and applied to verify the effects of tariff protection from the typical domestic firm's strategic interaction standpoint. We further apply crosssectional data to carry out an empirical analysis of the model, to verify how tariffs impact the domestic firm's output and pricing decisions. Our findings would enable us to contribute to the debate about the need to remove protective tariffs, on the grounds that tariffs do not only enable domestic firms to operate inefficiently, but also tends to distort the output and pricing outcomes that would otherwise have been realized in the free market. The results from the study are used to propose some major policy implications of imposing tariff protection, among which are that there is need for implementation of more deliberately sustained Research and development program on the part of domestic firms in the economy, to enable them withstand vigorous competition in a free-trade world. Also, since protective tariffs significantly increase firms' profit rates, which in turn enables them to unduly earn and accumulate economic rents that amount to inefficiencies and distortions in free-market prices and quantities outcomes, governments should always resist any pressures from big businesses to impose protective tariffs against competition from international rivals. Yet a clear public policy implication from this paper is that, at the macro level, as the results suggest that a government policy that aims at protecting domestic firms through imposition of tariffs may have an adverse effect on the firms' competitive stance in the industry, a practical message is for the government to impose only a moderate tariff at the most, if it must, especially as it relates to agricultural products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic uncertainty has steadily increased in response to a series of unforeseen shocks, notably the Global Financial Crisis, Brexit, COVID-19, and the Russia–Ukraine war. This study examined the impact of economic uncertainty on rents and capital values in Australia's office, retail, and industrial property sectors. The reactions of these performance indicators to national uncertainty shocks were assessed through reduced-form vector autoregressive (VAR) models, using quarterly data from 2001Q1 to 2022Q3. Overall, there is an inverse relationship between uncertainty and commercial property performance, with notable variations in magnitude and persistence across the different subsectors. Rents are more sensitive to external shocks across all three subsectors, highlighting their role as signals of short-term performance. Following one standard deviation shock in uncertainty, rents steadily declined for approximately three years in the office and retail subsectors. Industrial rents, however, exhibited muted reactions and recovered quicker, typically within five quarters. This resilience to external shocks displayed by the industrial subsector positions it as a compelling option for defensive investment strategies and portfolio diversification. Capital values are less reactive than rents, showing minimal responses to uncertainty shocks and little long-term persistence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evolution of rent sharing is studied. Based on a panel of the top 300 publicly quoted British companies over 35 years and using excess stock market returns to patenting activity as an instrument for economic rents, the paper reports evidence of a significant fall over time in the pass-through from rents to wages. It confirms that wages do respond to firm-level shocks to economic rents, but by significantly less after 2000 than during the 1980s and 1990s. The evidence of decline is robust, corroborated with alternative instruments and industry-level analysis for the United States and the European Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This summary provides an overview of the Competition Law Challenges 2024 conference held at Charles University in Prague. The conference aimed to stimulate discussion on current topics in competition law and regulation. Keynote speakers discussed the importance of conferences for public debate and outlined planned legislative changes. Panel discussions covered topics such as anti-competitive agreements, sectoral regulation in technology sectors, and procedural issues. The conference aimed to contribute to the development and improvement of competition law in the Czech Republic. [Extracted from the article]

Prior research has argued that companies in transition economies engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities to achieve political goals, such as building connections with the government. However, it is unclear why chief executive officers (CEOs) agree to make these politically driven CSR decisions that mainly benefit the controlling shareholders. We show that controlling shareholders may "bribe" the CEOs with greater compensation or perks—a form of economic rents extracted by the CEOs—to make CSR decisions, and such a pattern is more salient in local government-owned companies. We reason that these CSR activities reflect implicit contracting between the controlling shareholders and the CEOs. Through cross-section analyses, we find that the CEO's economic rents vary with local government fiscal needs, the firm's governance structure, and CEO power. Furthermore, we demonstrate that increases in CSR-linked compensation lead to a decline in shareholder value. Data Availability: All data are available from public databases identified in the paper. JEL Classifications: D72; M12; P26. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This research aims to identify the optimal configuration of investment which leads firms to their best competitive positions, considering the degree of concentration in the market. Design/methodology/approach: The methodology was quantitative and based on secondary data with samples of 124, 106 and 90 firms from competitive environment classified as perfect competition, monopolistic competition and oligopoly, respectively. Proposed models' parameters were estimated by means of genetic algorithms. Findings: Adjustments on firm's investment are contingent on the degree of competition they face. Results are in line with existing academic research affirmation that the purpose of investments is to create and exploit opportunities for positive economic rents and that investments allow firms to protect from rivals' competitive actions and reinforce the need for investment decision makers to consider the environment in which the firm is competing, when defining the amount of investment that must be done to achieve and maintain a favorable competitive advantage position. Originality/value: This research brings two main original contributions. The first one is the identification of the optimal amount of capital and R&D investments which leads firms to their best competitive positions, contingent to the degree of concentration of the competitive environment in which they operate, and the size of the firm. The second one is related to the use of genetic algorithms to estimate optimization models that considers the three competitive environments studied (perfect competition, monopolistic competition and oligopoly) and the investment variables in the linear and quadratic forms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary competition policy is informed in significant measure by static microeconomic theories that are of limited use when competition is driven by innovation, which brings rapid change, even for large, platform-based companies ("Big Tech"). Static models in competition economics prioritize efficiency gains from cost savings even though welfare gains from innovation are much larger. Competition economics could benefit from the integration of strategic management and innovation economics. Management scholars have the opportunity to properly introduce and apply concepts such as isolating mechanisms, capabilities (and their development), and ecosystem competition into the policy debate. If management scholars invest the time and effort to understand current competition policy models, they may be able to reengineer them in a manner that leads to a better understanding of dynamic competition, a more nuanced view of the nature of economic rents, and better metrics for assessing competitive effects. These should in turn lead to better public policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the work of Professor Phillip Crowson, who has written and presented on the management and expectations of mining companies, cautioning against over-emphasizing environmental and social concerns. While Crowson's writing can be critical of these concerns, a closer reading shows that his analysis aligns with the approach required for sustainable development. Crowson emphasizes the need for mining companies to understand and address the full costs of operating, including social and environmental impacts. The article also highlights the importance of guidance from organizations like the Intergovernmental Forum on Mining, Minerals, Metals and Sustainable Development (IGF) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in informing decisions about economic development and trade-offs. [Extracted from the article]

A proposed two-dimensional modified Lotka-Volterra fishery model in terms of predator-prey aims to explore the effect of non-selective harvesting on the predator and prey populations. The study delves into various essential aspects of the dynamical system, including positivity, uniform boundedness, and persistence. Points of equilibrium are identified. The system's local and global stability are thoroughly examined and discussed. Moreover, the research explores the concept of bionomic equilibrium, a scenario where economic rent is entirely dissipated. Extending the bioeconomic model, the study investigates a linear optimal control problem to determine the most effective harvesting strategy. Utilising Pontryagin's maximum principle, the optimal control is characterised. The findings indicate that maximum allowable effort should be exerted whenever the net revenue per unit effort surpasses the total net marginal revenue of predator and prey stocks. Numerical simulations, using data on the marine artisanal fishery in Ghana, are conducted to validate the theoretical discoveries. The outcomes reveal that the fishery can support sustainable harvesting of both predator (tuna) and prey (sardinella) populations, as long as the optimal harvesting effort is set at 100,000 fishing trips annually. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Successful catching-up economies tend to exhibit a set of properties: (i) rapid increases in skilled labor and R&D investment, (ii) industrial structure upgrading from technology adoption toward technology creation sectors, and (iii) spatial concentration on the rise. The paper accounts for them by combining the mechanisms of skill-city complementarity and knowledge spillover in the setting of catching-up economies where ideas are more challenging to find along the growth path. With the diminishing possibility of adopting existing ideas, catching-up economies gradually rely more on creating ideas, which requires efficient knowledge spillover through urban spatial concentration based on ability sorting. We highlight that (i) catching-up economies choose proper city size and structure to benefit from growth effects through fostering innovation and spillovers, and (ii) rents here are not just an economic rent but play a productive role of allocating innovative abilities over space in an incentive-compatible manner. We discuss the policy on urban rents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document contains two book reviews. The first review discusses "Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle over Technology and Prosperity" by Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson. The book argues that the impact of new technologies on prosperity is influenced by economic, social, and political choices, and provides historical case studies as evidence. The reviewer questions some of the authors' assumptions and emphasizes the need for regulation to address the negative consequences of technological advancements. The second review is about a book written by a political prisoner in Myanmar, which details his experiences in prison. The reviewer criticizes the lack of introspective analysis and explanation of the author's mental trauma in the book, but praises the author's wife for her advocacy efforts. [Extracted from the article]

Recent scholarship claims that group grievances due to political exclusion and discrimination drive civil wars. The grievance perspective suggests that socio-psychological factors allow groups to overcome collective action problems. We argue that the grievance perspective (over)focuses on the ends and not means, which are critical to explain how groups survive state sanction, allowing contention to escalate to civil war. We suggest that inclusive economic governance reduces investment in state-evading infrastructures for quotidian economic reasons, leading to the buildup of rebellion-specific capital. Physical and human infrastructures of state evasion form the logistical bases for survival against state sanction. Our analyses show that group-grievance-generating political factors are poorer predictors of civil war compared with economic freedoms measured as free-market friendly policies and the private ownership of economies, which should reduce economic rents accruing to state-evading shadow markets. Our results are robust to several alternative models, data, and estimating method. Theory that ignores the means explain the main causes of costly violence only partially, or mistake symptom for cause. Freedom and inclusiveness, which should reduce grievances, are intrinsically valuable, but they are hard to obtain when violence is waged successfully for more narrower ends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective/context: In the context of the installation of cabildos in the viceroyalty of the New Kingdom of Granada, this article studies the transition of two towns inhabited by «free people» to the status of villas: the parroquia of Guasimal de Cúcuta and the sitio of San José de La Marinilla. This process shows how the fact that the Catholic monarchy gave the jurisdictional quality of villa to specific towns fostered a virtuous circle in which various local and metropolitan agencies became intertwined and promoted a policy of negotiated integration, which ceded autonomy in local government. Methodology: Based on primary documentary sources detailing the establishment and functioning of chapter governments, we analyze the process of administrative cession in jurisdictional terms and, in general, the establishment of provincial governments in towns in the viceroyalty of the New Kingdom of Granada. Originality: The examination of the documentation allows us to reveal the materialization of a historical process of generalized integration in Hispanic America, induced by the ministers of Charles III, which gave jurisdictional qualities to mestizo population groups, seeking to benefit the royal rents of the economic growth that these populations were experiencing and to determine the new municipal political architecture in the time of the Bourbons. Conclusions: In the cases analyzed, we can see how, in search of administrative rationality, the crown negotiated the granting of autonomy to parroquias and towns of «free people» as a policy of integration that should strengthen centralization and increase productivity to achieve income and economic growth. It can also be seen how the patricians were diligent in giving institutionality to the new republics, guided by royal regulations that even embraced strengthening the branches of propios y arbitrios (such as health and coercion, among others). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Will stock exchanges innovate to address latency arbitrage and the arms race for speed? This paper models how exchanges compete in the modern electronic era and how this shapes incentives for market-design innovation. In the status quo, exchange trading fees are competitive, but exchanges earn economic rents from selling speed. These rents create a wedge between private and social incentives to innovate and support the persistence of an inefficient market design in equilibrium of a market-design adoption game. We discuss implications for policy and insights for the literatures on market design, innovation, and platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Power and dependence in economic exchange shape industry structure. When a focal industry faces powerful suppliers or buyers, this can reduce industry rents. The authors argue that these dynamics also affect job quality by reducing the economic surplus available to be shared with workers. Drawing on ideas from power-dependency theory, this article explains industry earnings and job quality differences by examining inter-industry exchange patterns. The authors build on Ronald Burt's seminal analysis of structural constraint in economic exchange using industry input-output tables. They calculate market constraint measures for recent years in the United States and link these with CPS data on wages and benefits. Analyses reveal that workers in more buyer-constrained industries (dependence on powerful buyers) experience lower wages and benefits. Findings also show that market constraint reduces the economic surplus available for union bargaining. Theory and results suggest that market concentration reduces suppliers' economic rents, harming job quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Platform capitalism is a growing reality with a widening social and economic impact. The rapid expansion of Short-Term Rental (STR) platforms has led to new challenges for policy regulation. The main objective of this paper is to shed some light on current conflicts surrounding the regulation of STR. The body of literature on this topic mainly focuses on the increasing substitution of sharing economy by commercial hosts. By contrast, we explain that the ideological notion of host hinders the understanding of the supply-side structure. A critical approach (as critique of ideology and ideological categories) should entail a class perspective based on rent theory and engage with critical works on platform capitalism. In this article, we propose an innovative analytical approach to STR supply-side supported by rent theory, which focuses on the relationship of agents with land and technology ownership and specialised management services, as these are forms of rent appropriation. From this point of view, these supply-side agents are not hosts, but class factions with common and competing economic interests in rent appropriation. Therefore, they can employ a variety of strategies to influence the political regulation of STRs. Based on in-depth interviews with landlords, individual managers, and corporate agencies in Andalusia (Southern Spain), we show the conflicting internal structure behind the ideological notion of host and even professionalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are instances where CEO turnover occurs, even if the company has not made any significant strategy changes, and the new CEO possesses similar abilities as the predecessor. This paper aims to provide a rational explanation for this seemingly irrational phenomenon. One possible reason for this "aggressive" CEO turnover is the board's desire to reduce the information rents earned by the privately informed CEO. Specifically, the incumbent CEO has a temptation to "sandbag" the board about profitability prospects to secure more generous incentive pay for future implementation, and a (seemingly aggressive) replacement policy helps discourage this kind of gaming. That is, instead of "information-based entrenchment" as suggested by the literature (Laux 2008; Inderst and Mueller 2010), this paper shows a countervailing effect that the CEO's private information (combined with the later-stage moral hazard problem) may lead to her dismissal more often than the ex post efficient benchmark. JEL Classifications: D86; G34; M41. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Australian economy has performed well compared with comparable countries over the last three decades only if we average the excellent performance in the 1990s and the poor performance over the past decade. Real wages over the past decade have stagnated—to an extent without historical parallel. We cannot understand the economy's underperformance without recognising the increasing claims of economic rents on national income. Correction of weaknesses requires coordination of many policy instruments including measures to reduce the prevalence of rents (competition policy and regulation of oligopoly where competition is not feasible or inefficient) and changes in taxation arrangements to shift the burden of business taxation from firms in competitive activities to firms relying heavily on economic rents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Price markups and firms' Tobin's Q ratios are widely believed to have been increasing in the past several decades. Various models for the calculation of price markups have been developed, each relying on the historically held definition of the ratio of price to marginal cost; however, all of these have methodological drawbacks, and some of the results they have produced have been poorly reflective of the near past wider macroeconomic experience. This paper defines a new approach for the definition and measurement of markup pricing, and it also avoids some of the issues surrounding the marginal cost approaches by using the measure of economic rent and the capital asset pricing model. The results show limited markup pricing for the UK's FTSE 100 companies (2018–2023), but that certain real estate, technology/media and financial services/equity investment firms have enjoyed higher price markup levels. An analysis of the business models of these firms is used to qualitatively propose explanations for such markups. This work offers formal proof that that the expected price markup is equal to Tobin's Q and finds that the empiric market level of markup is near equivalent to the market Tobin's Q; the differences between the markup and Tobin's Q at the level of the firm are equally assessed. This work challenges the general consensus that price markups are above one and have been increasing; it may also aid policy makers with respect to taxation policy and regulatory measures, as well as the financial management of firms in decisions concerning capital deployment and portfolio management. The method merits expansion to wider data sets, as well as to those from outside of the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the debate between a Marxist political economy approach and a geographical political economy approach in housing studies. The author argues that the geographical approach lacks a middle level of abstraction and overemphasizes consumption. They suggest that understanding land as a financial asset is crucial for analyzing urban dynamics and capitalism. The author also criticizes the Marxist approach for focusing too much on production and not enough on finance. They discuss the blind spot in housing provision regarding mortgage financing and the state's regulatory role, highlighting how mortgages drive house price inflation. While the author critiques the framework of "social property relations," they acknowledge the importance of a Marxist approach in understanding the political economy of housing and rent struggles. They conclude by suggesting that political economy analyses of housing systems should incorporate the strategies of specific institutionalized actors. [Extracted from the article]

The scarcity of information that allows for understanding the importance of natural resources from an economic approach is often a limitation to establishing parameters related to environmental investment in conservation plans. This study proposes a methodology that allows for modeling the variability of páramo land uses and the EV of the Chambo-Ecuador sub-basin from bioeconomic monitoring that links the economic rent of páramo land uses with remote sensing tools and geographic information systems. Multilayer Perception, Markov Chains, and Automata Cells algorithms were efficient for the detection of land uses in páramo; the normalized differential humidity index was the most relevant variable to identify crops, showing that leaf properties and water stress are linked to crop yields in the Andean region. The páramo decreased by 13% between 2000 and 2010, increasing its degradation to 19% between 2010 and 2020. A 28% reduction is expected between 2000 and 2030; the EV between 2000 and 2020 was $2.86 × 108 and $2.59 × 108 respectively. In 2030, EV is expected to decrease to $2.48 × 108. Transitions in land use and EV are associated with productive dynamics, which decrease environmental services, such as water retention and carbon storage, intensifying changes in the ecosystem climate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The book "Money Creation: the past and present of society's most important technology" by Peet van Biljon and Alexandra Reed Lajoux explores the social, historical, and societal aspects of money. It delves into topics such as the origins and role of money, wealth inequality, central banks and global finance, FinTech and cryptocurrencies, and the potential for a cashless society. The authors emphasize that money is a technology that serves society and discuss its impact on economic development throughout history. They also address challenges and opportunities in the modern financial system, including issues of wealth inequality, fraud, and the concentration of power. The book provides a comprehensive examination of the evolving nature of money and its impact on society. [Extracted from the article]

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This study aimed to measure the impact of natural resource returns on the economic growth in Qatar, in an attempt to find out whether the resource curse is valid in this country which is abundant in natural resources, especially oil and gas. For this purpose, ARDL model and the time series for the period (1985-2017) were used. The experimental results of the study showed a co-integration relationship between the returns of natural resources and the economic growth in Qatar. The empirical findings of the study show that the natural resources have a negative and significant impact on the economic growth in the long run. Therefore, we can say that the risks of the resource curse apply to Qatar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The water footprint is an indicator of the impact of water use from its formation to its final destination. Agricultural eco-efficiency measures the efficient use of resources or materials available for crop production. Water's economic productivity analyses a product's efficient value as per its water supply and commercial value. The present research aimed to determine and relate the water footprint, economic productivity of water and agricultural eco-efficiency of 15 crops in the province of Chupaca - Peru. Georeferencing material was used for the delimitation of agricultural species, CROPWAT 8.0, CLIMWAT8.0, ArcGis 10.5 software, mathematical equations for the water footprint, agricultural eco-efficiency (Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA)) and economic productivity of water. The Total water footprint (TWF) of the fifteen crops was 1718237.01 m3/ton, likewise the BlueWF > GreenWF > GreyWF. In their economic outputs, gross value of production (GVP) > agricultural production (Ag-p) > economic rent agricultural (ERA) was verified. In environmental costs, water consumption that meets the needs of crops (Wc-Ag) > consumption of phytosanitary products (C-fly) > fertilizer consumption (C-fe) was determined. The average Agricultural ecoefficiency (Ag-Eec) and Economic water productivity (Ewp) were 89.8% and 0.046 PEN/m3 respectively. Statistical analysis between Ewp and Ag-Eec was rho = 0.18, t-test = 0.66 < 2.16 (a = 0.05; bilateral), and the correlation indicated that both activities are independent. The environmental costs and economic outputs of agricultural eco-efficiency did not influence the economic value of water. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Small-scale cross-border trade is ubiquitous in Africa. This paper uses disaggregated trade data to assess the determinants of the product portfolio of different groups of small-scale traders at the border between Uganda and Kenya. Using a weighted fractional response model, it finds that wheelchair-bound traders have a significantly higher propensity to handle products that are subject to high protection than other traders. This result suggests that border officials discriminate in favor of traders with disability in the enforcement of trade policies or the solicitation of bribes. More generally, the findings question the effective implementation of preferential trade agreements in Africa and call for trade policy reforms to be complemented by targeted measures to reduce the hardship faced by vulnerable groups within the population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the impact of bank market power on the interest rates charged for loans to nonfinancial firms within the context of a developing country. Employing a distinctive amalgamation of data encompassing banks, firms, and loan specifics, alongside panel data fixed-effect models, we elucidate that banks wielding greater market power tend to impose higher interest rates on their loan products. This effect becomes more pronounced for banks positioned at the upper echelons of the market power spectrum (relative market power) and in instances of lengthier credit relationships. However, its severity can be mitigated for firms managing multiple credit connections (subjective market power). Our findings shed light on the presence of practices aimed at extracting economic rents and accentuate the substantial costs associated with changing lending partners in the corporate credit landscape. Various papers have delved into the empirical examination of how competition impacts the accessibility and expenses tied to bank credit for nonfinancial firms, yielding a mosaic of outcomes. Our contribution to this body of the literature manifests as a more incisive empirical analysis, enabling us to disentangle the opposing dynamics at play. This analytical depth is achievable solely due to the exceptional dataset we have curated. Significantly, our study stands out as one of the initial endeavors to interlink dynamic, bank-level gauges of market power with directly observed interest rates at the firm level, all while controlling for bank and loan-specific characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of corruption level in steering the business–government relations (BGRs) in developing countries. It also examines the moderating effect of firm size. Design/methodology/approach: Using robust tobit and probit models, this study tests the response behavior of 9787 firms from 23 African countries to their government's policy and regulations and the direct effect of corruption control level in their response decisions. The authors also perform several other additional analyses to ensure the robustness of the findings, including change analysis, two-stage model and recursive bivariate model. Findings: The result shows that corruption level is among the significant factors that drive BGRs exponentially. The finding points out that, there is a strong alliance of business and government in more corrupt countries. Moreover, the impact of corruption level exacerbates when the firm is bigger. Research limitations/implications: Managers should focus more on activities that create long-term sustainable advantage. Valuable time of the senior managers should not waste on negotiating government policies to earn a short term advantages. Practical implications: It is evident that legal and transparent government alliances can lead to economic rent for firms. However, it is important to note that any alliance based on corruption and illegality is short-lived and ultimately detrimental to long-term prosperity. Therefore, it is crucial for firms to prioritize ethical business practices and build relationships with governments that prioritize transparency and accountability. Social implications: Given the detrimental impact of corruption on economic progress, it is crucial for Africa policy-makers to prioritize reforms aimed at reducing its adverse effect. By implementing ethical and transparent business practices, countries can attract more investment and promote economic growth. Originality/value: This study contributes to the existing literature on the passive form of political connectivity/activity and to what extend corruption level affect the political activities of firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have been split over how to view family owners' CSR engagement, arguing that they either engage in or disengage from CSR based on different motives (i.e., preserving socio-emotional wealth vs. seeking rent expropriation). Focusing on family owners in business groups, this study integrates these divergent views. We hypothesize that family owners would pursue both motives simultaneously by optimizing the level of CSR of each affiliated firm depending on their ownership level. Furthermore, we argue that this tendency is moderated by group-level contexts. Using a sample of Korean business groups, we found that family ownership is negatively associated with affiliated firms' CSR. Also, this negative relationship is more pronounced when firms belong to business groups with more charitable corporate foundations and when business networks are greater in their scope and scale. This study contributes to the literature by offering a more complete understanding of how family owners make CSR decisions in business group contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An economic interpretation of history suggests that war is a continuation of economic rivalry in pursuit of the object of desire in economics--economic rent. For the Middle East, the Industrial Revolution precipitated competition for control of its vast reserves of oil, a critical complementary asset for the machine age. The economic rents accruing to oil subjected the region to the "natural resource curse" of under-development and conflict between hegemonic powers. The escalation of US-China competition to dominate the key technologies of the modern digital economy into a full-blown economic and technological war squeezed China in the markets of the United States and its allies, pushing China to alternatives, including the Middle East, where it now has a pervasive economic presence through the Belt and Road Initiative, which has provided it a platform for diplomatic engagement. Any illusions of China rapidly converting its growing economic presence into leverage for peace in the region, which its brokerage of the Iran-Saudi Arabia restoration of diplomatic relations might have inspired, have been rudely shattered by the outbreak of war between Gaza and Israel. The key takeaway, however, is that, in the Middle East, the technological conditions that drive economic rivalry between China and the United States do not drive conflict between the two in the Middle East and that can only be good for the region. The first Industrial Revolution brought conflict to the region; the subsequent industrial revolutions are moving the nexus for conflict elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article delves into how firms in the energy sector in Europe can earn economic rents from intangible assets, specifically firm-owned intangible assets (FIAs) and owner organizations' intangible assets (OIAs). It highlights the influence of institutional quality on rent creation, showing that FIAs benefit from higher quality institutions while OIAs are negatively affected. The study also emphasizes the advantage of OIAs in multiple-ownership settings, particularly in countries with better institutional quality. Overall, the research contributes to understanding how different types of intangible assets generate rents for firms and how institutional context shapes this process, with a focus on international business and corporate governance in emerging economies like China. [Extracted from the article]

In this study, we take a comprehensive look at asymmetry in pay for luck, which is the finding that CEOs are rewarded for good luck, but are not penalized to the same extent for bad luck. Our main takeaway, which is based on over 200 different specifications, is that there is no asymmetry in pay for luck. Our finding is important given that the literature widely accepts the idea of asymmetry in pay for luck and typically points to this as evidence of rent extraction. (JEL G32, G34) Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Set against a co-optive policy discourse on rentiership in which the rent seeker appears as a distortive corruption of this common sense, it is crucial that critical approaches continue to center the ways in which asset-based struggles over rent extraction are integral to accumulation and social reproduction processes today. Subsequently, David Ricardo ([48]: 39) defined economic rent as a payment to the landlord reflecting the differential productivity gains of using a particular plot of land over the most marginal sites differential rent (DR1). The use of assets to manage scarcity is operative here, something [6] developed by highlighting rent as a "relation of control" (see also [62]) through which scarcity can be produced and rents extracted across the value chain. As a result, economic rent largely disappeared as a theoretical and political concern within mainstream economic debate and literature save for the work of people like Joan Robinson ([50]), whose ideas provided the basis for the conception of rent as "income in excess of opportunity cost" which [61]: 8) argues became "synonymous with I payment in excess of competitive price. i " By mid-20th century, this was the generally accepted conceptualization of economic rent. [Extracted from the article]

Crises of seniors' care in countries like the UK and Canada, further highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic, have been connected to processes of privatization and financialization. In this paper I argue that rent theory is important for disaggregating mechanisms, including of accumulation by dispossession, the devaluation of labour, and assetization, that underpin the process of financialization in the sector. Work on rents often divides between critical approaches, especially to land rent, and mainstream institutionalist and public choice approaches to rent-seeking. Critical rent theory is evolving beyond this divide to understand a broader range of types of rent. Yet, despite attention to the increasing importance of economic rents and forms of rentierism, labour and social reproduction are often excluded from the analysis of how rent relations arise. This paper demonstrates the problems with these exclusions. The argument is illustrated through an analysis of the restructuring of eldercare in British Columbia, Canada, in the last two decades, and employs a feminist political economy approach to examine the social production of rent relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is not easy to perform a numerical simulation of the path to a steady state in dynamic economic growth models in which households behave by generating rational expectations. It is much easier, however, if households are assumed to behave according to a procedure based on the maximum degree of comfortability (MDC), where MDC indicates the state at which a household feels most comfortable with its combination of income and assets. In this paper, I simulate how economic inequality increases in democratic countries under the supposition that households behave according to the MDC-based procedure. The results indicate that high levels of economic inequality can be generated and even increase in a democracy. As causes, I postulate households' misunderstandings of the economic situation, a government against certain groups in the economy, or an upward trend in temporary rent incomes. I then present a criterion for establishing the socially acceptable level of economic inequality and point out a practical shortfall arising from the inability to distinguish temporary economic rents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: With heterogeneous findings dominating the growth and natural resources relations, there is a need to explain the variances in Africa's growth process as induced by robust measures of factor endowments. This study used a comprehensive set of data from the updated database of the World Bank to capture the heterogeneous dimensions of natural resource endowments on growth with a particular focus on establishing complementary evidence on the resource curse hypothesis in energy and environmental economics literature in Africa. These comprehensive data on oil rent, coal rent and forest rent could provide new and insightful evidence on obscure relations on the subject matter. Design/methodology/approach: This paper considers the panel vector error correction model (PVECM) procedure to explain changes in economic growth outcomes as induced by oil rent, coal rent and forest rent. The consideration of the PVECM was premised on the panel unit root process that returns series that were cointegrated at the first-order differentials. Findings: The paper found positive relations between oil rent, coal rent and economic development in Africa. Forest rent, on the other hand, is inversely related to economic growth in Africa. Trade and human capital are positively related to economic growth in Africa, while population growth is negatively associated with economic growth in Africa. Research limitations/implications: Short-run policies should be tailored towards the stability of fiscal expenditure such that the objective of fiscal policy, which is to maintain the condition of full employment and economic stability and stabilise the rate of growth, can be optimised and sustained. By this, the resource curse will be averted and productive capacity will increase, leading to sustainable growth and development in Africa, where conditions for growth and development remain inadequately met. Originality/value: The originality of this paper can be viewed from the strength of its arguments and methods adopted to address the questions raised in this paper. This study further illuminated age-long obscure relations in the literature of natural resource endowment and economic growth by taking a disaggregated approach to the component-by-component analysis of natural resources factors (the oil rent, coal rent and forest rent) and their corresponding influence on economic growth in Africa. This pattern remains underexplored mainly in previous literature on the subject. Many African countries are blessed with an abundance of these different natural resources in varying proportions. The misuse and mismanagement of these resources along various dimensions have been the core of the inclination towards the resource curse hypothesis in Africa. Knowing how growth conditions respond to changes in the depth of forest resources, oil resources and coal resources could be useful pointers in Africa's overall energy use and management. This study contributed to the literature on natural resource-induced growth dynamics by offering a generalisable conclusion as to why natural resource-abundance economies are prone to poor economic performance. This study further asks if mineral deposits are a source or reflection of ill growth and underdevelopment in African countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Turkey (MINT) economies are recognized to be bedevilled with many obstacles hampering the economic expansion. In the meantime, many of these problems have not been comprehensively scrutinized in the context of the countries. In recent years, natural resources and tourism development have significantly increased in MINT economies. This study scrutinizes the relationship between natural resource rent, mobile use, foreign direct investment, international tourism, and economic growth in a balanced panel data of four MINT nations from 1971 to 2019. The key finding of this study shows that there is a positive and significant impact of foreign direct investment, natural resource rent, mobile use, and international tourism on MINT's economic growth. Furthermore, the tourism-led growth hypothesis is supported empirically in the case of MINT nations. Furthermore, the Granger causality analysis demonstrates that unidirectional causality is discovered from economic growth to tourism. The study recommends that MINT nations implement some practical tourism strategies to push up economic development, and in turn economic growth will positively contribute to the tourism sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is to examine the dynamic causal relationship between economic growth, renewable energy consumption, and CO2 with a broad perspective. The study is analyzed by dividing into two main parts. Growth and energy consumption in the first part, and the relationship between renewable energy and CO2 in the second part, within the framework of the basic hypotheses in the literature. On the other hand, as an observation group, the G7 economies were examined in the 1997–2019 period. According to PVAR regression estimates, if GDPPC increases by 1%, REN decreases by 0.81%, while CO2 increases by 0.71%. However, CO2 and REN do not appear to have any influence on growth. According to the causality estimates, a unidirectional causal relation from GDPPC to CO2 and REN was determined. In this case, the conservation hypothesis is valid. Considering the relation between CO2 and REN, no significant relation was found between the two variables in both regression and causality estimations. In this case, the neutrality hypothesis is valid between the two variables. It is seen that the diversity of energy sources or the investments made in them are inefficient. Our study offers a different perspective on energy resources and air pollution for the G7 economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A method for measuring rents has practical relevance for society in terms of improving competition, regulation, and taxation. This paper proposes a new way to measure rents for business corporations and at country-level: a method related to a cash flow tax (CFT). Theory, method and a proof of concept are presented and discussed. Publicly available data is used to validate the method, revealing that it yields a better indication of rents and rent-seeking compared to markup, profit, and free cash flow (FCF). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across the political spectrum, the concept of economic rent is used to delegitimise certain incomes by marking them out as unearned and/or inefficient. But too often, users offer either no definition of rent, multiple definitions that are logically incompatible, and/or definitions whose normative implications they appear not to comprehend. The first generalised concept of rent, which gained traction in the late 1800s, referred to incomes analogous to land rents in the sense of rewarding control over persistently scarce or monopolised assets, rather than labour or sacrifice. But by the mid-twentieth century, a very different concept of rent had been widely adopted by neoclassical economists: income in excess of opportunity cost or competitive price. According to this revised concept, most land rents would no longer qualify as rents. This article offers an account of how such rival understandings of rent emerged, evaluates the normative positions embedded within each, and considers why so many commentators fail to spot their incompatibility. It describes how the concept of rent, that the earliest adopters hoped would justify the socialisation of scarce and monopolised assets, became bent out of recognition, and deployed for diametrically opposed purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 crisis had a significant impact on world oil producers. Within a welfare economic framework, Schmitz, A., C. B. Moss, and T. G. Schmitz. 2020. "The Economic Effects of COVID-19 on the Producers of Ethanol, Corn, Gasoline, and Oil." Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization 18 (2): 1–18, estimated that the minimum cost of COVID-19 in 2020 to world oil producers was roughly US$ 1 trillion. They used actual oil production data for January 1st, 2020, through June 30th, 2020, and forecast world oil production and prices from July 1st to December 31st, 2020. This paper extends the 2020 analysis using actual production and price data for 2020 and 2021 to calculate the change in producer economic rents during the COVID-19 pandemic for global oil producers (U.S., Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the Rest of the World). Despite losses in 2020 to world oil producers due to the COVID-19 pandemic, world oil producers saw significant gains in 2021, which more than offset losses in 2020. At a minimum, world oil producers realized a net gain of $US 829 billion over the two periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is increasing consensus that modern capitalist economies suffer from excessive rent extraction in both financial and real economy sectors. However, scholars have yet to develop a coherent analytical framework for identifying the common characteristics of modern economic rents. In particular, there has been little attention paid to distinguishing 'good' rents—key to innovation and growth—from 'bad' forms which contribute to economic stagnation and inequalities of wealth and income. This paper takes some first steps in this direction. We first review the existing rent theory most pertinent to this distinction, including classical political economy, the early twentieth century institutionalists, neoclassical perspectives and Keynes's analysis of financial rentiers. Secondly, we map and conceptualise some key stylised features of modern rents, drawing on descriptive empirical evidence. We then identify the key questions that these developments raise for rent theory, elaborating a new research and policy agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eric Chaney of University of Oxford reviews "Conquests and Rents: A Political Economy of Dictatorship and Violence in Muslim Societies" by Faisal Z. Ahmed. The Econlit abstract of this book begins: "Examines how the institutional legacy of Muslim conquest is a robust determinant of less cohesive institutions in contemporary Muslim societies, detailing how variation in economic rents explain ebbs and flows of dictatorship and propensity for civil wars in these societies." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document is a book review of "Oil in Putin's Russia: The Contest over Rents and Economic Policy" by Adnan Vatansever. The book explores how Vladimir Putin regained control over Russia's oil revenues and neutralized potential challengers to his power. It discusses the generation, collection, and allocation of oil rents, with a focus on the early 2000s. The review highlights Putin's efforts to create a centralized power structure and the overhaul of the tax regime. It also mentions the challenges faced by Russia's economy and the dominance of the silovik mentality in the Putin regime. [Extracted from the article]