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#Economics

The Golden Passport: Global Mobility for Millionaires (Golden passport: Global mobility for millionaires) (Category Economics)

#Economics #History

Over the past week, I have read an interesting book with a detailed study of citizenship-by-investment programs, often referred to as “golden passports.” The book was written by Christine Surak, assistant professor of political sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science. To do this, she spent many years researching these programs, attending conferences, communicating with intermediaries, representatives of the governments of dwarf states, as well as with buyers themselves. As a result, she has a deep and interesting book that reveals both the history of the issue and the current state of affairs in this field, where wealthy people can actually buy citizenship in various countries.

Highlights of the book include: Explore the transformation of passport sales from questionable practices to a thriving industry involving more than a dozen countries. It is interesting that formally, Russia also has a citizenship by investment program, and Turkey is now the global leader, which has seized leadership from Cyprus. In the Caribbean, there are still old-timers of the investment passport market in the form of St. Kitts, Grenada, Dominica, St. Lucia, Antigua and so on. Analysis of the complex causes of this phenomenon, including the desire to increase global mobility, obtain tax incentives and provide insurance against political instability.
The scale of the market is about 50k people who annually acquire citizenship through these programs, the cost depends on the program, but everything starts with several hundred thousand dollars and can reach millions. Explore the implications of this practice for concepts of citizenship, global inequality, and the relationship between wealth and nationality.

Overall, this book provides a good understanding of the contemporary landscape of global citizenship, shedding light on this practice, which has significant implications for international relations, the economy, and social mobility. The book was published in English in 2023 Since then, the landscape of global citizenship has changed a lot:)

P.S. This is a book published by Fortis Press, which publishes translations of recent interesting books on topical topics. I’ve talked about a couple of books from this publisher before.

#Economics #History