Eliminating rents

Any economic policy programme, whether on the right or the left, should have the elimination of unjustified rents (not related to innovation in particular) as a key objective. The presence of unjustified rents inevitably results in a misallocation of savings, insufficient levels of production factors and production and , altogether , a loss of income and growth. Huge rents can now be identified (we look at the situations of the United States, the euro zone and France): Rents resulting from companies’ dominant positions in both the goods and services market and the labour market; Real estate rents; “Monetary” rents, linked to increases in asset prices as a result of highly expansionary monetary policies. But it will be difficult to eliminate these rents.