Quasi-rent or Marshallian rent is a temporary

economic rent In economics, economic rent is any payment (in the context of a market transaction) to the owner of a factor of production in excess of the cost needed to bring that factor into production. In classical economics, economic rent is any payment ...

like returns to a supplier/owner.

Alfred Marshall Alfred Marshall (26 July 1842 – 13 July 1924) was an English economist, and was one of the most influential economists of his time. His book '' Principles of Economics'' (1890) was the dominant economic textbook in England for many years. I ...

was the first to observe quasi-rents. Quasi-rent differs from pure economic rent in that it is a temporary phenomenon. It can arise from the barriers to entry that potential competitors face in the short run, such as the granting of

patents A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...

or other legal protections for

intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, c ...

by governments. It can also arise due to entrepreneurial responses to market fluctuation, or due to a lack of real capital to meet near-term increases in demand. In the longer term, however, the opportunity to profit will generate new capital and the quasi-rent will be competed away. In the field of Industrial Organizations,

Oliver Williamson Oliver Eaton Williamson (September 27, 1932 – May 21, 2020) was an American economist, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and recipient of the 2009 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, which he shared with Elinor Ost ...

points out that " e joining of opportunism with transaction-specific investments (or what Klein, Crawford, and Alchian refer to as "appropriable quasi rents") is a leading factor in explaining decisions to vertically integrate." Quasi-rent refers to that additional income which is similar to rent. According to

David Ricardo David Ricardo (18 April 1772 – 11 September 1823) was a British political economist. He was one of the most influential of the classical economists along with Thomas Malthus, Adam Smith and James Mill. Ricardo was also a politician, and a m ...

, rent arises on account of fixed supply of land. But he recognizes other factors which are found in fixed supply in the short term. The additional income earned by these factors in the short-period is similar to rent.

References

{{Reflist Monopoly (economics)