Taking note of the increasing accumulation of wealth by the top 1%, Svejnar examined the consequences of such distributions on the economy. 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.
Svejnar shares Research on Billionaires & Economic Growth
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Shang-Jin Wei
Shang-Jin Wei is N.T. Wang Professor of Finance and Economics and Chair in Chinese Business and Economy at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business as well as Director for the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Working Group on the Chinese Economy and Research Fellow at the Center for Economic Policy Research.