Buchanan (1929): The Historical Approach to Rent and Price Theory

Overview

"The Historical Approach to Rent and Price Theory" is an article by economist Daniel H. Buchanan (not to be confused with the public-choice economist James M. Buchanan), published in Economica, New Series, Vol. 9 (June 1929), pp. 123–155.[1] It is listed by Mark Blaug in Economic Theory in Retrospect (5th ed., 1997) as standard further reading on rent theory, characterized there as "a classic review of rent theory from Adam Smith to Alfred Marshall" — spanning the classical rent theory of David Ricardo and its later reformulation in Marshall's Principles of Economics.[2] The article was reprinted in W. Fellner and B. F. Haley's widely used anthology Readings in the Theory of Income Distribution (Allen & Unwin, 1950), consistent with its status as a standard historiographical reference on the topic.[3]

This page characterizes the article from Mark Blaug's secondary description and the work's consistent bibliographic record across citing sources; Buchanan's full argument was not read first-hand this session, so nothing here is asserted about the article's content beyond what Blaug reports and what the title states. A future editor with JSTOR or anthology access should mine the body and add page-level detail.

Relevance to Georgism

Buchanan's survey predates Henry George's influence on professional economics and does not address Georgism directly; its relevance is as backbone historiography for wiki pages that need to place economic rent theory's development — from Smith's original-and-value-neutral usage through Ricardo's differential-rent model to Marshall's quasi-rent — in its classical and neoclassical context before Georgist and single-tax debates are introduced.

See Also

• Economic Theory in Retrospect (Blaug) — the discovery source that lists this article as further reading
• David Ricardo · Alfred Marshall — the classical and neoclassical rent theorists Buchanan's survey covers
• Economic Rent · Quasi-Rent
• Cord, Henry George: Dreamer or Realist? — another Blaug-listed further-reading item, treated the same way on this wiki

Sources

1. Daniel H. Buchanan, "The Historical Approach to Rent and Price Theory," Economica, New Series, Vol. 9, No. 26 (June 1929), pp. 123–155. JSTOR issue record — used for the article's bibliographic details (journal, volume, date, page range), as reported consistently across secondary citations; the JSTOR page indexes the issue in which the article appears. Full-text access to verify the article's argument directly was not available this session.
2. Mark Blaug, Economic Theory in Retrospect, 5th ed. (Cambridge University Press, 1997), Ch. 3, notes on further reading — discovery source; lists Buchanan (1929) as a classic review of rent theory from Smith to Marshall.
3. W. Fellner & B. F. Haley (eds.), Readings in the Theory of Income Distribution (London: Allen & Unwin, 1950), pp. 599–637 — reprint of the article; its bibliographic record was cross-checked across multiple independent citations rather than fetched directly, and is reported here as corroborating rather than primary-verified detail.