thus the process of economic development is normally unbalanced with some firms and sectors gaining market shares at the expense of others and new products and production processes replacing older ones in a process of creative destruction schumpeter in this process the accumulation of capital and knowledge including that acquired through learning by doing tends to concentrate wealth and economic power even further but irrespective of crosscountry differences in the level of effective inequality the increase in inequality over time has given rise to growing concerns in many countries about its social and economic repercussions