by Jim Rose in economics of bureaucracy, economics of regulation, energy economics, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, poverty and inequality, privatisation, rentseeking, resource economics

The 1826 Billionaires in the Forbes 2015 list are classified as rich through political connections if they made their money through past political positions, close relatives or friends in government, or questionable licenses, privatisations or resource extraction industries.

Source: Caroline Freund and Sarah Oliver, The Origins of the Superrich: The Billionaire Characteristics Database (2016).



All privatizations were included in the politically-connected/resource-related category despite my data source acknowledging the possibility that the new owners may have transformed the company. Resource billionaires were all deemed to be lucky or cronies by my data source rather than diligent as some most certainly were. This is something of a slur by my data source given the industriousness of some resource billionaires some of whom were even geologists.

Political cronyism is a path to billionaire wealth mainly in the developing countries. Less than 10% of Chinese billionaires made their money through political connections, which is surprising.