From Soil to Servers: Persistent Neglect of Land Resources and Digital-Age Rents
Argues that the rent-seeking once centered on land is being repeated in digital platform economies, and calls for updated Georgist policy for the digital age.
Summary
This 2025 paper in Land (MDPI) draws a direct line from historical land rent to the rents of the digital economy — the network, data, and platform rents captured by dominant tech firms.
Key Argument
The authors contend that economics has persistently neglected land as a distinct factor, and that the same analytical blind spot now lets digital-platform rents go uncaptured. Just as locational advantage generates land rent, network effects and data control generate digital rents that are similarly unearned and concentrable. They call for extending Georgist principles — capturing rent at its source — to spectrum, data, and platform monopolies. This connects to Mazzucato et al. (2023) on mapping modern rents.
Bears On
- Concept: Rent-Seeking · Resource Rents
Sources
- "From Soil to Servers: Persistent Neglect of Land Resources and Digital-Age Rents" (2025), Land 14(2):341. Article