137
Composite quasirent.
Indeed,
in some cases and for some purposes, nearly the whole income of a business may
be regarded as a quasi-rent, that is an income determined for the time by the
state of the market for its wares, with but little reference to the cost of
preparing for their work the various things and persons engaged in it. In
other words it is a composite quasi-rent divisible
among the different persons in the business by bargaining, supplemented by
custom and by notions of fairness … Thus the head clerk in a business has an
acquaintance with men and things, the use of which he could in some cases sell
at a high price to rival firms. But in other cases it is of a kind to be of no
value save to the business in which he already is; and then his departure
would perhaps injure it by several times the value of his salary, while
probably he could not get half that salary elsewhere.
Alfred Marshall
(1842-1924)