Back to The Undercover Economist homepageRapaciously running a poor country can be extremely lucrative:
Transparency International, the corruption watchdog, has estimated that Mohamed Suharto embezzled up to $35bn when he was Indonesia’s president, a figure that is in the same league as the entrepreneurial fortunes of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.
But Mo Ibrahim, the hugely impressive Sudanese telecom entrepreneur, is trying to increase the returns to governing benevolently. Prospect’s blog reports:
Every year, the winner will be awarded $500,000 for the subsequent ten years, followed by a lifetime pension worth $200,000 a year. Yesterday, the first award went to Joaqium Chissano, former president of Mozambique.
File this one under "worth a try".
Tim writes about the economics of everyday life. His 