1. ‘State Capture in Transition’: Summary Findings Joel Hellman and Daniel Kaufmann The World Bank

2. New Research Program & Findings on State Capture and ‘Grand’ Corruption
New work ‘unbundles’ and measures corruption, state capture and governance: evidence from 3600 firms in 22 transition economies. Key input to new Anticorruption in Transition report.
Questions about investment climate, enterprise performance and behaviour; interactions between the state and firm
Implemented jointly by World Bank and EBRD in collaboration with ECA region (Wbank), in context of Anticorruption Report.
Corruption is dissected: administrative corruption, State Capture and procurement kickbacks -- with major implications
“Seize the State, Seize the Day” paper, Sept. 2000
Details and data available at
Data subject to margins of error and need to be interpreted with caution. Data and views are not necessarily official-institutional.

3. …Small firms and New Entrants face more administrative (petty) corruption in transition

4. State Capture Index and its Components
...Yet the focus ought to shift to ‘Grand Corruption’: firms shaping the legal, policy and regulatory environment by illegally ‘purchasing’ the laws, policies and regulations of the state (“State Capture” by corporates)
State Capture Index and its Components
(% of firms affected by corporate purchase of:...)
Source: Hellman, Jones and Kaufmann “Seize the State, Seize the Day”,

5. Extent of the “Capture Economy” in Transition (based on overall State Capture Index -- see previous slide) 45 40 35 30 25
State Capture Index
(% of firms affected by state capture) 20 15 10 5
Albania
Armenia
Belarus
Bulgaria
Croatia
Estonia
Georgia
Azerbaijan
Czech Rep
Hungary
Latvia
Kazakhstan
Lithuania
Moldova
Poland
Romania
Russia
Slovakia
Slovenia
Ukraine
Overall
Kyrgyzstan
Uzbekistan
For details, including margins of error and data sources, visit

6. For Firms, Capture is strategy that started with insecure property rights they faced

7. Country-wide: State capture is associated with incomplete civil liberties (& slow economic reforms)

8. …Capture brings substantial gains to the captor firms -- within the Capture Economy (in high capture countries)

9. Further Social costs of state capture: Much lower growth in sales and investment in economy

11. Some Policy Implications
Anti-corruption efforts should focused more on state capture as the root of governance problems
Need to factor in that the roots of state capture result from partial civil liberties, lack of transparency and insecurity of property rights
Need to address link between corporate (including FDI) and national-level governance
Political and Economic competition limit state capture
deconcentration of economic activity
civil society, collective action and political accountability
For details and data: