This profoundly ambitious theoretical work centers on ‘value,’ understood as everything humans deem worth appropriating. Every society is hierarchical, and the top echelons are dominated by elites, the quality of which—in the business, politics, and knowledge arenas—determines economic and human development. All elites run elite business models that both create and extract value, originate or transfer risk, and use their power and agency to shape institutions. This book argues that when inclusive value creation outweighs extractive value transfers, the outcomes for society at large are positive. Sustainable value creation happens when intra-elite contests result in more innovation than rent seeking, more free trade than protectionism, and more competition than monopolies. Leveraging diverse ideas from economics (value), sociology (power), political economy (the distribution of value), and management (the value creation and appropriation framework), the book advances a sweeping inter-disciplinary framework that positions the meso-level elite system at its core. This extends the institutional perspective and acts as the transmission mechanism between the micro-level firm and the macro-level political economy. A wealth of elite business model cases are considered throughout its pages—ranging from Neolithic grain to AI and from Caesar to Trump—to further an elite theory of economic development that transcends traditional Left–Right debates, is rooted in its own speculative philosophy, and yet is highly practical, with proposals for structural reform, cost of equity calculations, and an approach to sustainability based on weighting and offsetting extractive transfers. This economic treatise supplies the conceptual tools for a realistic account of how the world works today and, in its discussion of elite judgment, offers an ethical framework to guide elite transformational leadership. It will be essential reading for researchers, policymakers, and business leaders around the world looking for fresh ideas on how to navigate and reappraise how we address current realities.

Table of Contents:
Preliminary note: The process and purpose of a conceptual approach Part 1. Towards a Logic of Elites 1.1 In populism and in denial, two elite fallacies 1.2 Multi-disciplinary literature review for a definition of elites 1.3 The logic of elite agency (i): fundamentals 1.4 The logic of elite agency (ii): theoretical perspectives 1.5 The logic of elite agency (iii): behavioral perspectives Part 2. Towards an Elite Theory of Economic Development 2.1 Elites in political economy theory 2.2 Elites and institutions, which comes first? 2.3 Power in elite contests 2.4 Value creation business models: production, exchange and innovation 2.5 Value extraction business models: transfers 2.6 Elite business models: aggregate at the meso-level and impact on macro-level performance Part 3. Towards an Elite Quality Measurement of the Political Economy 3.1 Is there a measurement gap? 3.2 Operationalization of elite quality, a four-level architecture 3.3 Interpretation through rankings, frameworks and narratives (macro-level) 3.4 Shaping intra-elite contests 3.5 Further research 3.6 Selected limitations for the ‘elite quality index’ Closing note: Latifundia perdidere Germaniam and how not to lose the future Bibliography