Billionaires

Peter Leeson and Tino Sanandaji ()
Additional contact information
Tino Sanandaji: Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN), Postal: and Harris School of Public Studies, Chicago, IL 60637

No 893, Working Paper Series from Research Institute of Industrial Economics

Abstract: Existing studies of entrepreneurship focus on entrepreneurs whose individual contribution to wealth creation is typically trivial: self-employed persons. This paper investigates entrepreneurs whose individual contribution to wealth creation is enormous: billionaires. We explore the relationship between economic development, institutions, and these contrasting kinds of entrepreneurs. We find that the institutions consistent with self-employed entrepreneurs di¤er markedly from the ones consistent with billionaires. Further, only the latter are consistent with the institutions that underlie economic prosperity. Where well-protected private property rights and supporting, market-enhancing institutions flourish, so do billionaires. But self-employed entrepreneurs don't. Where private property rights are weakly protected and interventionist institutions flourish, so do self-employed entrepreneurs. But billionaires don't.

Keywords: Billionaires; Entrepreneurship; Self-employment; Institutions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H20 L26 L53 O17 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2012-01-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ent and nep-hpe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Published as Leeson, Peter and Tino Sanandaji, 'Billionaires' in Industrial and Corporate Change, 2013, pages 313-337.

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.ifn.se/wfiles/wp/wp893.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Billionaires (2013)
Working Paper: Billionaires (2013)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:0893

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Paper Series from Research Institute of Industrial Economics Research Institute of Industrial Economics, Box 55665, SE-102 15 Stockholm, Sweden. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Elisabeth Gustafsson ().