The rise of intangible over tangible assets, real estate bubbles and financialisation are among the stylized facts of what has come to be called rentier capitalism. An era within capitalism in which rent-seeking and predatory capital drive increasing inequality and hamper productive investment and innovation. Everywhere in the economy we see various forms of rents becoming increasingly prominent: from ground rents in urban areas and cities, to intellectual and property-rights rents in pharmaceutical and ICT industries (among others) and, to a greater extent, the so-called financialisation of the economy that has relocated the old financial rentierism at the center of the stage.
Coming ahead of the resilience of traditional natural resources rents, the expansion of these rising rents considerably drag on the trajectory of capitalism. What are the overall effects of these rents on global and national economies? Can we clearly differentiate rents from traditional profits? Are these forms of rent changing the nature of contemporarycapitalism? What are the similarities and differences with other moments in history? What type of legal measures and policies could revert rentier capitalism? What are –if any- the differential effects of rentier capitalism between core and peripheral regions? These and other questions motivate the
organization of this workshop on rentier capitalism. Not only contemporary analysis will be welcomed but also explorations on how the concept of rent has evolved throughout economic thought and in economic history.
This workshop aims at gathering young and senior scholars working on the aforementioned topics in order to present our findings and, by using knowledge stations, build a joint research agenda that will be followed up with a webinar series after the workshop.
More information in the attachment
