Rent
In classical economics rent was the return to an "owner" of land. In later economic theory this term is expanded as economic rent to include other forms of unearned income typically realized from barriers to entry. Land ownership is considered to be a barrier to entry because land owners make no contribution to the production process. They simply prevent others from using that which would otherwise be useful.
"Rent is that portion of the produce of the earth, which is paid to the landlord for the use of the original and indestructible powers of the soil. It is often, however, confounded with the interest and profit of capital, and, in popular language, the term is applied to whatever is annually paid by a farmer to his landlord." (Ricardo)
Read more about this topic: Returns (economics)
Famous quotes containing the word rent:
“Underneath the inharmonious and trivial particulars, is a musical perfection, the Ideal journeying always with us, the heaven without rent or seam.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I have been breaking silence these twenty-three years and have hardly made a rent in it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The arbitrary division of one’s life into weeks and days and hours seemed, on the whole, useless. There was but one day for the men, and that was pay day, and one for the women, and that was rent day. As for the children, every day was theirs, just as it should be in every corner of the world.”
—Alice Caldwell Rice (1870–1942)