The New Wealth of Nations: How STEM Fields Generate the Prosperity and Inequality of Individuals, Companies, and Countries
The New Wealth of Nations: How STEM Fields Generate the Prosperity and Inequality of Individuals, Companies, and Countries
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新的国富论：STEM 领域如何促进个人、公司和国家的繁荣和不平等
DOI：
10.1016/j.chaos.2020.110323
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发表时间：
2020
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Stanley, HE
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Podobnik, B;Crawford, GC;Lichtenstein, BM;Wild, D;Zhang, X;Stanley, HE
长期以来，物理基础研究一直是计算机科学家和工程师设计创新产品（如笔记本电脑和手机）的先决条件。技术创新和基础研究都是所谓的STEM领域（科学、技术、工程和数学）的一部分，众所周知，这些领域对经济增长做出了重大贡献。然而，问题仍然存在：在不同的分析层面上，这些领域对财富积累和不平等的贡献有多大？首先，分析世界上最富有的人的名单，Zipf图分析表明，STEM领域的亿万富翁比非STEM领域的亿万富翁对财富不平等的贡献更大。分析标准普尔500指数中的公司，我们发现STEM公司对财富不平等的贡献更大，平均增长率高于非STEM公司。最后，我们表明，一个国家的STEM毕业生越多，其GDP增长率就越高。综上所述，我们证明了STEM是一种分形机制，它在不同的经济规模上——从个人财富到公司估值再到国家GDP——驱动财富积累和财富不平等。
Fundamental research in physics has long been a prerequisite for computer scientists and engineers to design innovative products, such as laptops and cell phones. Technological innovations and fundamental research are both part of the so-called STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics), which are known to substantially contribute to economic growth. However, the questions still remain: how much contribution do these fields make to both wealth accumulation and inequality at different levels of analysis? First, analyzing the lists of world’s wealthiest individuals, the Zipf plot analysis demonstrates that STEM billionaires contribute more to wealth inequality than their non-STEM counterparts. Analyzing the companies in the S&P500, we find that STEM firms contribute more to wealth inequality and have larger growth rates on average than the non-STEM firms. Finally, we show that the more STEM graduates in a country, the larger its GDP growth rate. In combination, we demonstrate that STEM is a fractal mechanism that drives wealth accumulation—and the wealth inequality— at different scales of economy—from individual wealth to firm valuation to country GDP.