he recent war in Iran has triggered a massive global oil shock. Virtually everyone on the planet relies on oil, or on products that require it, which means virtually everyone is now paying more for the basics of daily life. It feels like the rare crisis that hurts everyone equally.

It doesn’t. New research from economists Gregor Semieniuk, Isabella Weber, and colleagues uses financial forensics to show exactly how supply shocks funnel money upward: over 50% of the profits from the COVID and Ukraine-related supply shocks of 2021 and 2022 went to the top 1% of the US wealth distribution. The bottom 50% received just 1%. There is every reason to believe the same pattern is playing out right now.

The mechanism is straightforward. Suppose a war destroys some company’s oil supplies — but not yours. The global price of oil rises because total supply has fallen, even though your company has lost nothing. You now sell the same amount of oil as before at dramatically higher prices, having done nothing to improve your product or your efficiency. It is a pure windfall.

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