Oil and regime type in Latin America: Reversing the line of causality

Javier Corrales, Gonzalo Hernandez Jimenez and Juan Camilo Salgado

Energy Policy, 2020, vol. 142, issue C

Abstract: In its first generation, the literature on the resource curse typically posited that resource dependence shapes a country's economy and politics. More recent work posits that the effects are mediated by institutions. We take this newer approach further by arguing that economic and political institutions not just mediate but actually shape resource dependence. Our focus is on performance across national oil companies (NOCs) in Latin America. We explain performance variation by invoking variations in regime and market features. NOCs that operate in contexts of greater independence from the Executive Branch (stronger checks and balances within and outside the sector) and greater market forces—though not necessarily private actor dominance—exhibit better performance. Institutions thus influence sector conditions, rather than the other way around. We advance this argument using original data from Colombia and Venezuela, and supplementary data from Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina. Our study focuses on the oil boom-bust cycle of 2003–2016.

Keywords: Oil companies; Resource curse; Regime type (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030142152030104X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:enepol:v:142:y:2020:i:c:s030142152030104x

DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2020.111347

Access Statistics for this article

Energy Policy is currently edited by N. France

More articles in Energy Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().