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

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: Brink Lindsey, Steven M. Teles
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 09/01/2019
Pages: 232
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.55lbs
Size: 8.20h x 5.40w x 0.60d
ISBN13: 9780190059002
ISBN10: 0190059001
BISAC Categories:
- Business & Economics | Economic Conditions
- Business & Economics | Government & Business
- Political Science | Public Policy | Economic Policy

About the Author

Brink Lindsey is Vice Policy President and Director of the Open Society Project at the Niskanen Center. He is the author of, most recently, The Age of Abundance and Human Capitalism.

Steven M. Teles is Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University and Senior Fellow at the Nikansen Center. He is the author of, most recently, The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement and Prison Break: Why Conservatives Turned Against Mass Incarceration.