Monopoly Rent
Some returns are associated with legally enforced monopolies like patents or copyrights. In addition, companies like Microsoft and Intel have important de facto monopolies that can be quite valuable. The American Medical Association has traditionally regulated the number of students each US medical school can graduate, and by restricting the supply of doctors has been accused of thus increasing the income of doctors. Some businesses like public utilities are by their very nature monopolies. George Stigler estimated the impact of monopoly rent on the US economy to be fairly low, but he specially excluded labor monopolies from his studies.
Read more about this topic: Economic Rent
Famous quotes containing the words monopoly and/or rent:
“United Fruit... United Thieves Company... it’s a monopoly ... if you won’t take their prices they let your limes rot on the wharf; it’s a monopoly. You boys are working for a bunch of thieves, but I know it ain’t your fault.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“I have been breaking silence these twenty-three years and have hardly made a rent in it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)