Measuring Cronyism

 

The Economist quantifies cronyism:

We have classified the main source of each billionaire’s wealth into crony and non-crony sectors. Our crony sectors include a host of industries that are vulnerable to rent-seeking because of their proximity to the state, such as banking, casinos, defence, extractive industries and construction. We have aggregated the data according to billionaires’ country of citizenship expressed as a share of its gdp.

Russia’s crony economy sticks out like a blinged-up Muscovite in the Algarve. Some 70% of the 120 Russian billionaires, who together hold 80% of its billionaire wealth, fall within our crony-capitalist definition. Wealth equivalent to 28% of Russia’s gdp in 2021 came from crony sectors, up from 18% in 2016.

HT:  MarginalRevolution.com