Spotlight

Svejnar Shares Research On Billionaires & Economic Growth

Taking note of the increasing accumulation of wealth by the top 1%, Svejnar examined the consequences of such distributions on the economy. 

July 15, 2015

Do billionaires help or hurt economic growth? He set out to answer that question with his colleague, Sutirtha Bagchi (Villanova University). His findings show that billionaires do not help economic growth; politically-connected billionaires have a negative effect on economic growth: "We discovered that billionaire wealth that arises from being politically connected has a strongly negative effect on growth. In contrast, the effect of politically unconnected billionaire wealth on the overall economy is indistinguishable from zero." This suggests that public policy geared toward fixing wealth distribution may need to factor how the wealth is acquired. Read the full article on The Guardian.