Conclusions and Policy Implications

Part II of this book has attempted to take the primary and novel findings from Part I, particularly about the explanatory power of the number of economic elites, and apply them to a broader set of dependent variables. These findings are important because they provide an alternative way to think about and measure political outcomes in a way that is less subjective and oftentimes more accurate than the commonplace political competition measures such as Polity Score or the Electoral Democracy Index. At the very least, such results provide reason to supplement findings derived from these political indices with additional examination using measures of economic elites. This is because in most states, the number of economic elites determines the core political incentives of political leaders and therefore carries wide explanatory power to predict important policy outcomes. This chapter will briefly summarize the major highlights of the book and then provide some commentary on the major implications in several key areas, such as for academic study, investors, and policymakers. I conclude the book by discussing the future of international political systems as it relates to the themes discussed throughout the book.