CHAPTER VIII 
RENT 
In economics the term “ rent " is not used 
with its ordinary significance. Ordinarily 
it means the annual payment made for land 
or buildings. It therefore stands for a 
hiring charge : but it is not applied to every 
hiring charge. If a person hired a brougham 
he would no more call the charge for it a rent 
than he would call the rent of his house a 
hiring charge. This common usage of the 
term “ rent ” has been determined solely 
by convention. Economists began with it, 
but after economic inquiry became more 
scientific, and the causes of payments began 
to be investigated, the application of 
the word “ rent ” in economics suffered 
restriction. In this study, it was made 
to refer only to annual or other periodic 
payments for land, apart from payments for 
things produced by labour and capital such 
as houses and farm buildings. The split 
between common usage and economic usage 
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