Rent Preservation and the Persistence of Underdevelopment
提出，在贫富不均的贫困社会中，各群体为保护自身租金而抵制改革，导致集体受损的现状难以改变，从而解释了欠发展为何持续存在。
When citizens in a poor constrained society are unequally endowed, they are likely to find it hard to agree on reforms, even though the status quo hurts them collectively. Each citizen group or constituency prefers reforms that expand its opportunities, but in an unequal society, this will typically hurt another constituency's rents. Competitive rent preservation ensures no comprehensive reform path may command broad support. The roots of underdevelopment may therefore lie in the natural tendency toward rent preservation in a divided society.