Part 3 — Chapter 12. Increase of Rent-bearers and of Rents

1. What are the most obvious ways of increasing the productiveness of land?

2. How does a new railroad affect the value of the land it passes through?

3. How would the rent of a rocky island be affected if it became a summer resort?

4. Mention any cases you may have seen where a greater value was imparted to land by a newly discovered use.

5. A tunnel was made to drain a mine; the stock doubled in price. Was it really the stock, the old mine, or the new hole in the mountain-side that had increased in value?

6. Criticize the statement that, in an economic sense, land is a "fixed stock for all time."

Note.—The changes which the rent concept is undergoing can be traced in the work of Alfred Marshall. See Principles of Economics, Bk. V, ch. IX on "Quasi-rent," and ch. X on "Situation Rent," and Bk. VI, ch. IX, Secs. 6-7, in which Marshall modifies the older conception of rent. This is discussed in "The Passing of the Old Rent Concept," cited above (in note to ch. 10).