Institutions and Distribution: Ownership and the Identification of Rent

Abstract

Using the marginalist theory of David Ricardo and the institutionalist ideas of Richard Jones and Alfred Marshall, the article shows that rent theory is incomplete and fundamentally incoherent without an institutional specification of ownership. The sum of the supramarginal returns (Ricardian rent) is not necessarily to be equated with the rental incomes of landowners of record; the returns can accrue to others as well, depending on institutions (custom, power, law).