Rent at Public Markets

(Photo: Alpha)

At the Queen Victoria Market, an immense city-run collection of stalls and shops in Melbourne, Australia, a fishmonger at a prime corner is paying $5,500 per month to the City to operate there.  Since other fishmongers pay less, much of this payment is economic rent — payment for the visibility/access at this corner. But is the City extracting all the rent, or is it giving the fishmonger a good deal?

This fishmonger has been in business at this location for a very long time.  That fact suggests that at most the City is not overcharging him, and perhaps it isn’t even extracting all the rent.  Whenever many public lessees in competitive businesses stay in business a long time, the public agency is probably granting them excess profits — at the public’s expense.