Wealthy Elites' Policy Preferences and Economic Inequality: The Case of Technology Entrepreneurs
American politics overrepresents the wealthy. But what policies do the wealthy support? Many accounts implicitly assume the wealthy are monolithically conservative and that increases in their political power will increase inequality. Instead, we argue there is substantial heterogeneity by industry, wherein the wealthy from an industry can share a distinctive set of political preferences. Consequently, how increases in the wealthy’s influence affect inequality depends on which industries’ rich are gaining influence and which issues are at stake. We demonstrate our argument with three original surveys, including the two largest surveys of wealthy Americans to date: one of technology entrepreneurs—-a burgeoning wealthy demographic—-and another of political campaign donors. We show that technology entrepreneurs support liberal redistributive, social, and globalistic policies but conservative regulatory policies—-a bundle of preferences rare among other wealthy individuals. Consistent with our theoretical argument, we also present evidence that suggests these differences arise from their distinctive predispositions.
Date: 19 April 2018, 14:15 (Thursday, 0th week, Trinity 2018)
Venue: Christ Church, St Aldates OX1 1DP
Venue Details: Michael Dummett Lecture Theater
Speaker: Neil Malhotra (Stanford GSB)
Organiser: Alexander Kuo (University of Oxford)
Organiser contact email address: alexander.kuo@politics.ox.ac.uk
Booking required?: Recommended
Booking email: alexgkuo@gmail.com
Audience: Members of the University only
Editor: Alexander Kuo