Aven knows a lot about at least one petrostate -- and not the least important one, either: Russia vies with Saudi Arabia for the title of the world's biggest oil producer.
The diagnosis and predictions from Aven and his co-authors are dire. They write that petrostates, from Russia to Venezuela, and from Kazakhstan to the Persian Gulf, have used their oil rent to enjoy Western-style consumption without subscribing to the Western values that made it possible. Now they are at risk of ending up like the producers of natural rubber after the invention of synthetic latex -- dependent on a commodity that no longer generates a rent because of its scarcity but just sells as a certain mark-up to production cost.
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