Royalty - History till Present

[Coffeehouse]

I was looking at economic prosperity in Wiki, and under GDP per capita, the most common measurement of the average level of wealth of a nation's inhabitants, I was struck by the fact that, if you f.ex. look at the ranking compiled by the IMF for 2008 (latest ranking), 5 of the 10 top spots, and 3 of the top 3, are Kingdoms (by some definition or another). (In fact if you take away Iceland from the list, they won't be anywhere near top 10 for the 2009 or 2010 ranking...), and replace it with 11th place Kuwait, you get 6 out of the top 10. I.e. 6 of the top 10 wealthiest in terms of level of income of their inhabitants are hereditary kingdoms...!

1 Qatar $86,008 - Head of State: Emir
2 Luxembourg $82,441 - Head of State: Grand Duke
3 Norway $53,738 - Head of State: King
4 Singapore $51,226 - Republic
5 Brunei $50,199 - Head of State: Sultan
6 United States $47,440 - Republic
7 Switzerland $43,196 - Republic
8 Ireland $42,110 - Republic
9 Netherlands $40,558 - Head of State: Queen
10 Iceland $40,471 - Republic
11 Kuwait $39,915 - Head of State: Emir

What gives

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This thread can be used for discussion about any history concerning any type of other royal state, government, etc. throughout history.