Day 1,229: rent-seeking
State-backed champions in energy and tech sometimes succeed, but the more that countries pile in, the more waste and rent-seeking there will be.
Artwork of the day
Snail's rent
Jacek Yerka
Original Title: Slimak Czynszowy
Style: Surrealism
Genre: symbolic painting
Word of the day
rent-seeking: an economic concept that occurs when an entity seeks to gain added wealth without any reciprocal contribution of productivity
Quote of the day
“The State cannot and should not bow down easily to interest groups who approach it to seek handouts, rents and unnecessary privileges like tax cuts. It should seek instead for those interest groups to work dynamically with it in its search for growth and technological change.”
― Mariana Mazzucato, The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths