Reexamining the Blavatskyy Hypothesis: ARE THE FAT CATS FAT, OR JUST OLD?

Blavatskyy (2021) identifies a strong correlation between the estimated BMI of 299 transition economy politicians and perceived corruption. However, by not controlling for age or gender, it is possible that the patterns reflect demographic composition for which BMI is simply a marker. To address this, we obtain age and sex estimates for 249 of the politicians in the original sample, and also control for characteristics of the general population in each country. We then use data from the Health in Times of Transition survey to build a model to predict BMI from age and sex and use it to estimate how much of leaders’ estimated BMI we can attribute to these factors. We find that a positive relationship between perceived corruption and estimated leader BMI still exists even after controlling for these factors.

Keywords: body-mass index, computer vision, corruption, government, post-Soviet states

Editor: Dr Bakhytzhan Kurmanov, Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Public Policy and Administration, Graduate School of Development, University of Central Asia, bakhytzhan.kurmanov@ucentralasia.org

Suggested citation: Cooper, L., & Becker, C. (2025). Reexamining the blavatskyy hypothesis: Are the fat cats fat, or just old? University of Central Asia. https://doi.org/10.70240/IPPAWP.2025.00