[noilly]

Exactly... the political and economic institutions of Russia have not progressed and have likely regressed in the last 10 years. Who led Russia in 2002? Putin. Who is leading Russia in 2011/12? Still Putin and United Russia. The Litvinenko killing and Khodorkovsky imprisonment are chilling indictments of this regression. Also the run up of energy and commodity prices has only increased the allure and hold of the Dutch disease in Russia.

[dredmorbius]

Hrm ... interesting thought: is a market dependent on financial services analogous to one dependent on natural resources?

Particularly if those financial services are extractive in nature?

[timiscool999]

Maybe, but they look like two separate problems to me.

Russia's is a "resource curse": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse

Our current financial system looks more like a twist on a "rent seekers": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_seeking

They're kind of similar, but only because resource curse countries end up with a bunch of rent seekers and corrupt officials.

[dredmorbius]

I've got to mull this one over a bit. After several decades of study, I'm just starting to really grok money and finance.

Notable WRT resources curse / Dutch disease is the Norwegian counterexample: http://ideas.repec.org/p/ssb/dispap/377.html

[bh42222]

Norway had a strong law and order foundation before they hit oil.

[gwern]

True, but the article the other day on Norway said that they squandered the oil up until the 1970s? when they brought in a foreigner to advise them on how to set up their current successful system. The law and order helped them recover from their mistakes, yes, but it didn't stop them from making them and if the oil had run out before they recovered...?

[dredmorbius]

So ... finance definitely has a rent-seeking component, having reviewed some of the literature.

But it also has the effect of starving other fields of talent and technical expertise, of bidding up their costs, and related effects which are more similar to Dutch Disease / Resource Curse. The number of physics, maths, and engineering grads working at banks / financial institutions rather than at science / product R&D firms, for example, is pretty staggering.

Still mulling, but thanks for the food for thought.

[michaelf]

> Particularly if those financial services are extractive in nature?

Could you elaborate on that sentence? What do you mean by "extractive"? In the context of natural resources, I take that word to imply that the resource is depleted (e.g. non-renewable). Do you have a difference sense in mind?

[dredmorbius]

"Rent seeking" would be a good description of what I had in mind, take a look at the Wikipedia article I mentioned.

Some financial activities -- traditional financing of productive economic activity with real returns -- actually generates productive financial and economic activity. Other forms of finance -- essentially create liquidity based on existing assets, but don't actually turn that liquidity into something productive. Say, roughly, a HELOC. Or they simply squeeze payments out of population that's poorly equipped to refuse them: fees, fines, and penalties added to many financial and services contracts.

I'd argue that both of the latter are "extractive" in that rather than promoting economic activity, they serve to convert some illiquid asset class (or population) into a currency pump for the benefit of the financier.

I don't know if computerized trading falls into this model but I'm inclined to think it does, and would very much favor a transactions tax to put limits on this sort of activity. I suspect the bigger problem is that these systems are poorly understood and have very large downside potential through inadvertent (or deliberate) feedback loops. Think Flash Crash.

[billswift]

I wondered what he meant by "extractive" financial services, too.

>In the context of natural resources, I take that word to imply that the resource is depleted (e.g. non-renewable).

Is incorrect. Lumbering and agriculture are extractive industries but not "non-renewable". All primary production of resources are "extractive" industries.

[dredmorbius]

I had in mind non-renewable extractive industries.

I don't see sustainable timber, agriculture, fishing, or solar/wind/geothermal/hydroelectric power as extractive.

Wikipedia appears to agree with me, likewise the World Bank: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extractive_industry http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTOGMC/0,,c...