Russian Billionaires on an International Background: Features and Dynamics of the Position

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Abstract

The article analyzes the situation of super-rich Russians (each owning capital over $1 billion) from 2004 to 2023 in comparison with the global business elite. The uniqueness of the Russian billionaires’ position is discussed along with the features of their capital dynamics interpretations. The total wealth of Russian billionaires can be described as a “club of convergence” during the last decade, the number of Russian billionaires being literally stable, while those represented in the Forbes world ranking are characterized by linear growth. Russian dynamic of accumulation differs significantly from the global one in that the number of billionaires in Russia is much lower, but the degree of capital concentration remains one of the highest globally. The richest Russians act as a kind of fulcrum for maintaining stability of domestic socio-economic situation: a significant number of business elite representatives are owning large industrial enterprises often located in mono-industry towns and serving as the principal (if not the only) employer, what makes them literally responsible for social stability.

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About the authors

Elena A. Shvetsova

HSE University

Author for correspondence.
Email: eashvetsova@hse.ru

Graduate Student, Institute of Sociology

Russian Federation, Moscow

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2. Fig. 1. Dynamics of the number of billionaires and their personal capital in the world, in billion USD

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3. Fig. 2. Dynamics of the number of billionaires in Russia and in the world

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4. Fig. 3. Dynamics of the number of Russian billionaires and their personal capital, in billion USD

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5. Fig. 4. Dynamics of the size of the aggregate capital of billionaires in the world compared to the dynamics of the capital of Russian billionaires, in billion USD

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6. Fig. 5. Oil rent (% of GDP) - Russia, USA, China, India

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