Oil, Nontax Revenue, and the Redistributional Foundations of Regime Stability

Kevin M. Morrison

International Organization, 2009, vol. 63, issue 1, 107-138

Abstract: Nontax revenues make up a substantial amount of government revenue around the world, though scholars usually focus on individual sources of such revenue (for example, foreign aid and state-owned oil companies). Using a theory of regime change that builds on recent models of the redistributional foundations of dictatorships and democracies, I generate hypotheses regarding all nontax revenue and regime stability. I argue that an increase in nontax revenue should be associated with less taxation of elites in democracies, more social spending in dictatorships, and more stability for both regime types. I find support for all three of these hypotheses in a cross-sectional time-series analysis, covering all countries and years for which the necessary data are available. Significantly, I show that the particular source of nontax revenue does not make a difference: they all act similarly with regard to regime stability and the causal mechanisms.

Date: 2009
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (113)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:intorg:v:63:y:2009:i:01:p:107-138_09

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Organization from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().