The historic United Nations World Conference Against Racism, Xenophobia and Related Forms of Intolerance held in early September 2001 was unfortunately obscured by the tragic events of September 11. Nonetheless, the event reflects global recognition of problems of racial, ethnic and cultural discrimination, oppression, and exploitation. The paper, inspired by participation in collaborative international research presented to the Conference, suggests that economic discrimination may be usefully seen in terms of rents and rent-seeking. By successfully discriminating against a particular group, employers or consumers succeed in extracting rents from the group discriminated against. However, such rents are different in nature.
