For a produced commodity, economic rent may be due to the legal ownership of a patent (a politically enforced right to the use of a process or ingredient).
For most other production, including agriculture and extraction, economic rent is due to a scarcity (uneven distribution) of natural resources (e.g., land, oil, or minerals).
[6][7][8] As long as there is sufficient accounting profit, governments can collect a portion of economic rent for the purpose of public finance.
For example, economic rent can be collected by a government as royalties or extraction fees in the case of resources such as minerals and oil and gas.
[12] The law professors Lucian Bebchuk and Jesse Fried define the term as "extra returns that firms or individuals obtain due to their positional advantages.
As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce.
The wood of the forest, the grass of the field, and all the natural fruits of the earth, which, when land was in common, cost the labourer only the trouble of gathering them, come, even to him, to have an additional price fixed upon them.
[15] Johann Heinrich von Thünen was influential in developing the spatial analysis of rents, which highlighted the importance of centrality and transport.
Simply put, it was density of population, increasing the profitability of commerce and providing for the division and specialization of labor, that commanded higher municipal rents.
This is a natural "free market" self-limiting control on the number of guild members and/or the cost of training necessitated by certification.
The same model explains the high wages in some modern professions that have been able to both obtain legal protection from competition and limit their membership, notably medical doctors, actuaries, and lawyers.
It may also apply to careers that are inherently competitive in the sense that there is a fixed number of slots, such as football league positions, music charts, or urban territory for illegal drug selling.