You’re reading Dispatch Markets, a weekly dive into the forces driving economic growth—and those holding it back—featuring Scott Lincicome, Kyla Scanlon, Karl Smith, Marian Tupy, and Adam Ozimek.
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You → read → Lincicome
The number of billionaires in the world has almost tripled since 2011.
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number → triple → 2011
In 2026, Forbes counted 3,428 billionaires, up from 1,210 in 2011.
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Forbes → count → 2011
That growth hides a striking split between the United States and Europe.
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growth → hide → States
In the United States, new fortunes have become more common.
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fortunes → become → States
A study of the Forbes 400 found that the share of billionaires who created their wealth rose from 41.5 percent in 1982 to 67.2 percent in 2013.
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who → find → 2013
The Forbes-based dataset of all current billionaires Sam Fox and I used for this newsletter points in the same direction more recently.
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Fox → base → direction
Among all U.S. billionaires, the self-made share rose from 68.9 percent in 2011 to 72.5 percent in 2026.
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share → make → 2026
Europe moved the other way.
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Europe → move → ?
Among European Union nations, the self-made share fell from 49.3 percent to 39.9 percent.
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share → make → percent
Across Europe excluding Belarus, Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine, it fell from 55.0 percent to 44.6 percent.
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it → exclude → percent
Two countries can have similar levels of wealth inequality and very different economic systems.
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countries → have → inequality
In one, the richest people may owe their position mainly to inherited assets.
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people → owe → assets
In another, many may have built their fortunes within their own lifetimes.
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many → build → lifetimes
A billion dollars inherited from a great-grandfather and a billion dollars created by building a new company look identical in the statistics.
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dollars → inherit → statistics
Economically, they tell very different stories.
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they → tell → stories
That’s an important distinction because much of the American political debate assumes that large fortunes are accumulated at the expense of others.
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fortunes → ’ → others
Sen. Bernie Sanders has said that billionaires should not exist.
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billionaires → say → ?
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez put the idea more plainly when she said, “No one ever makes a billion dollars.
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one → put → dollars
You take a billion dollars.”
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You → take → dollars
Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, has argued that some large fortunes reflect monopoly power, political influence, and other forms of rent-seeking, an argument he developed in his 2012 book The Price of Inequality.
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he → win → Inequality
As Stiglitz correctly points out, some fortunes do come from political privilege, monopoly protection, fraud, or other forms of extraction.
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fortunes → point → extraction
However, particularly in the United States, fortunes created in competitive markets often arise differently.
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fortunes → create → markets
A founder builds a company that offers a product, service, or process that customers value more than the alternatives.
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customers → build → alternatives
If the company succeeds on a large scale—as with Bill Gates’ software innovations or Jeff Bezos’ logistics networks—the founder may become extraordinarily rich while customers receive most of the gain.
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customers → succeed → gain
William Nordhaus, a Nobel laureate, tried to measure the extent to which gains go to consumers..
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gains → try → consumers
In a study of U.S. nonfarm business from 1948 to 2001, he estimated that producers captured about 2.2 percent of the total gains from innovation.
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producers → estimate → innovation
Most of the gains went to consumers through lower prices, better products, and new capabilities.
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Most → go → prices
That point is easy to miss because the founder’s fortune is visible while the gains to everyone else are spread across millions of people.
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gains → miss → people
A $50 billion fortune appears on a list.
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fortune → appear → list
Yet those scattered gains are often much larger than the fortune that attracts public attention.
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that → scatter → attention
Progressives like Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez who see billionaires as takers prefer redistribution as the solution to perceived or real want in the United States.
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who → see → States
That can change who receives a given amount of income today.
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who → change → income
But it comes at the cost of growth, which changes how much income, knowledge, technology, and productive capacity exist tomorrow.
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income → come → growth
Robert Lucas, another Nobel Prize-winning economist, thought economists paid far too much attention to the question of redistribution and far too little to the question of growth.
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economists → win → growth
He called the focus on wealth distribution “the most seductive, and in my opinion the most poisonous” tendency in economics.
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He → call → economics
Looking back at the Industrial Revolution, Lucas wrote that “virtually none” of the enormous improvement in human welfare came from direct redistribution.
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none → look → redistribution
The potential benefits of redistributing current production, he wrote, were “nothing compared to the apparently limitless potential of increasing production.”
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he → redistribute → production
The difference becomes enormous over time.
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difference → become → time
A transfer changes someone’s position once.
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transfer → change → position
…and 162 more, not listed.
The Aporia
