The Captured Economy: How the Powerful Enrich Themselves, Slow Down Growth, and Increase Inequality

by Lindsey, Brink; Teles, Steven M.

• ISBN13: 9780190627768
• ISBN10: 019062776X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2017-11-10
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

For years, America has been plagued by slow economic growth and increasing inequality. In The Captured Economy, Brink Lindsey and Steven M. Teles identify a common factor behind these twin ills: breakdowns in democratic governance that allow wealthy special interests to capture the policymaking process for their own benefit. They document the proliferation of regressive regulations that redistribute wealth and income up the economic scale while stifling entrepreneurship and innovation. They also detail the most important cases of regulatory barriers that have worked to shield the powerful from the rigors of competition, thereby inflating their incomes: subsidies for the financial sector's excessive risk taking, overprotection of copyrights and patents, favoritism toward incumbent businesses through occupational licensing schemes, and the NIMBY-led escalation of land use controls that drive up rents for everyone else. An original and counterintuitive interpretation of the forces driving inequality and stagnation, The Captured Economy will be necessary reading for anyone concerned about America's mounting economic problems and how to improve the social tensions they are sparking.

Author Biography

Brink Lindsey is Vice President, The Cato Institute, and author of The Age of Abundance and Human Capitalism. Steven M. Teles is Associate Professor of Political Science, Johns Hopkins University, author of The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement, and co-author of Prison Break.