Rent creation generates self-reinforcing lock-in because beneficiaries never surrender privileges.

Evidence

Once an economic rent has been created and assigned to a group of beneficiaries, it can be argued that policymakers may already have induced political path dependency. Rents create a large potential for self-reinforcement due to the fact that beneficiaries will be unwilling to give up their privileges again (Krueger, 1974). However, a closer look at different definitions of path dependency, on the one hand, and individual agricultural policy measures, on the other, does not always clearly suggest that what is observed in reality necessarily implies anything more than a weak use of ‘path dependency,’ that is, not more than the general argument that ‘history matters’ (Ackrill and Kay, 2006). — Georg Schreyögg and Jörg Sydow, The Hidden Dynamics of Path Dependence, 984

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes Paul Milgrom’s law-merchant and diamond-bourse work: concentrated beneficiaries police and defend a system they profit from.
• DEFINE: Economic rent defined as payment above the minimum needed to induce a factor of production to work.