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

In The Captured Economy, Brink Lindsey and Steven M. Teles identify a new culprit for increasing inequality: the government-corporate sector nexus. They explain how wealthy special interest groups have captured the governmental regulatory process, and why the perverted form of governance that this alliance has created subverts the goals of egalitarian-minded policymakers. They also offer feasible policy solutions that can help correct the problem.

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.