Social Impact of Successful Business People

Over the past few decades, the distribution of wealth has become increasingly uneven (Swanson, 2015). In the US, the share of overall wealth held by the top 1% increased from around 25% in 1980 to more than 40% today (Bagchi & Svejnar, 2015). Given the severity of wealth inequality, successful business leaders are often criticized for earning and spending tremendous amounts of money while less affluent people struggle to make ends meet. Therefore, it is important to know whether business leaders benefit society under this configuration. On the whole, successful business leaders benefit society both by making and spending their money.