Pushing One's Luck: Petroleum ownership and discoveries

Christa Brunnschweiler and Steven Poelhekke

No 2019-01, University of East Anglia School of Economics Working Paper Series from School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK.

Abstract: Does institutional change in the petroleum sector lead to more oil and gas exploration and discoveries? Foreign ownership and investment in the sector has traditionally been unrestricted. We document that this is no longer the case; foreign-domestic partnerships are the norm today. Tracking changes in legislation between 1867 and 2008 for a panel of countries, we show that switching to foreign ownership results in more drilling and more discoveries of petroleum than domestic ownership. Switching to partnership yields even more drilling, but yields fewer discoveries. Discoveries, and the intensity and quality of exploration drilling, are endogenous to industry-specific institutional change.

Keywords: discoveries; oil and gas; natural resources; institutions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E02 O43 Q30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-05-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-ene and nep-mac
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Pushing one’s luck: Petroleum ownership and discoveries (2021)
Working Paper: Pushing One's Luck: Petroleum Ownership and Discoveries (2021)
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