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Rent-seeking is the act of growing one's existing wealth by manipulating the social or political environment without creating new wealth.^[1] Rent-seeking activities have negative effects on the rest of society. They result in reduced economic efficiency through misallocation of resources, stifled competition, reduced wealth creation, lost government revenue, heightened income inequality,^[2]^[3] risk of growing corruption and cronyism, decreased public trust in institutions and potential national decline.

Successful capture of regulatory agencies (if any) to gain a coercive monopoly can result in advantages for rent-seekers in a market while imposing disadvantages on their uncorrupt competitors. This is one of many possible forms of rent-seeking behavior.

^ Compare: "rent-seeking". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.) – "rent-seeking n. Economics[:] the fact or process of seeking to gain larger profits by manipulating public policy or economic conditions, esp. by means of securing beneficial subsidies or tariffs, making a product artificially scarce, etc. [...]"
^ IMF. "Rent-seeking and Endogenous Income Inequality" (PDF). Retrieved 30 April 2014.
^ Cite error: The named reference Deaton2023 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).