Resource rent


In economics, rent is a surplus value after all costs and normal returns have been accounted for, i.e. the difference between the price at which an output from a resource can be sold and its respective extraction and production costs, including normal return. This concept is usually termed economic rent but when referring to rent in natural resources such as coastal space or minerals, it is commonly called resource rent. It can also be conceptualised as abnormal or supernormal profit.
In practice, identifying and measuring resource rent is not straightforward. At any point in time, rent depends on the availability of information, market conditions, technology and the system of property rights used to govern access to and management of resources.

Categories of rent

Rent can be categorised into different kinds depending on how it is created. In general one can distinguish three different kinds of rent, which can also occur together: differential, scarcity, and entrepreneurial rent.