A theory of civil conflict and democracy in rentier states

The effects of resource rents on the political equilibrium have been studied in two main types of models. The first tradition employs models of conflict, and studies how resource rents affect the intensity and duration of civil conflict. The second tradition employs political economy models, where resource rents affect the political equilibrium because the costs and benefits of buying votes change. Although providing much insight, a primary disadvantage of these two model traditions is that they have little to say about when democracy emerges, and about when conflict emerges. This question is simply determined by the type of model one chooses to study. Yet an important empirical literature suggests that a main effect of resource rents may be exactly that it affects the political choice between democracy and civil conflict. In this paper, by integrating the earlier model traditions, we suggest the simplest possible framework we can think of to study this choice. The institutional outcome in our theory is consequently endogenous. We show how factors such as resource rents, the extent of electoral competition, and productivity affect economic and political equilibria, and discuss how our approach, mechanisms and results differ from the earlier theories.Political economy; Resource curse; Endogenous democratic institutions

Savers, Spenders and Fiscal Policy in a Small Open Economy

This paper analyzes the effects of fiscal policy in an open economy. We extend the savers-spenders theory of Mankiw (2000) to a small open economy with endoge- nous labor supply. We first show how the Dornbusch (1983) consumption-based real interest rate for open economies is modified when labor supply is endogenous. We then turn to the effects of fiscal policy when there are both savers and spenders. With this heterogeneity taken into account, tax cuts have a short-run contractionary effect on domestic production, and increased public spending has a short-run expan- sionary effect. Although consistent with recent empirical work, this result contrasts with those of most other theoretical models. Transitory changes in demand have per- manent real effects in our model, and we discuss the implications for real exchange- rate dynamics. We also show how "rational" savers may magnify or dampen the responses of "irrational" spenders, and show how this is related to features of the utility functions.rule-of-thumb consumers, fiscal policy, open economy

Savers, Spenders and Fiscal Policy in a Small Open Economy

This paper analyzes the effects of fiscal policy in an open economy. We extend the savers-spenders theory of Mankiw (2000) to a small open economy with endogenous labor supply. We first show how the Dornbusch (1983) consumption-based real interest rate for open economies is modified when labor supply is endogenous. We then turn to the effects of fiscal policy when there are both savers and spenders. With this heterogeneity taken into account, tax cuts have a short-run contractionary effect on domestic production, and increased public spending has a short-run expansionary effect. Although consistent with recent empirical work, this result contrasts with those of most other theoretical models. Transitory changes in demand have permanent real effects in our model, and we discuss the implications for real exchange-rate dynamics. We also show how “rational” savers may magnify or dampen the responses of “irrational” spenders, and show how this is related to features of the utility functions.rule-of-thumb consumers, fiscal policy, open economy

Optimal Dutch Disease

Growth models of the Dutch disease, such as those of Krugman (1987), Matsuyama (1992), Sachs and Warner (1995) and Gylfason et al. (1999), explain why resource abundance may reduce growth. However, the literature also raises a new question: if the use of resource wealth hurts productivity growth, how should such wealth be optimally managed? This question forms the topic of the present paper, in which we extend the growth literature on the Dutch disease from a positive to a normative setting. We show that the assumptions in the previous literature imply that the optimal share of national wealth consumed in each period needs to be adjusted down. However, some Dutch disease is always optimal. Thus lower growth in resource abundant countries may not be a problem in itself, but may be part of an optimal growth path. The optimal spending path of the resource wealth may be increasing or decreasing over time, and we discuss why this is the case.Growth; Foreign Exchange Gifts; Resource Wealth; Optimal Saving; Current Account Dynamics

Institutions and the Resource Curse

Countries rich in natural resources constitute both growth losers and growth winners. We claim that the main reason for these diverging experiences is differences in the quality of institutions. More natural resources push aggregate income down, when institutions are grabber friendly, while more resources raise income, when institutions are producer friendly. We test this theory building on Sachs and Warner's influential works on the resource curse. Our main hypothesis: that institutions are decisive for the resource curse, is confirmed. Our results are in sharp contrast to the claim by Sachs and Warner that institutions do not play a role.Natural resources, Institutional quality, Growth, Rent-seeking

Institutions and the resource curse

Countries rich in natural resources constitute both growth losers and growth winners. We claim that the main reason for these diverging experiences is differences in the quality of institutions. More natural resources push aggregate income down, when institutions are grabber friendly, while more resources raise income, when institutions are producer friendly. We test this theory building on Sachs and Warner's influential works on the resource curse. Our main hypothesis: that institutions are decisive for the resource curse, is confirmed. Our results are in sharp contrast to the claim by Sachs and Warner that institutions do not play a role.Natural resources, Institutional quality, Growth, Rent-seeking

Cursed by resources or institutions?

Natural resource abundant countries constitute both growth losers and growth winners, and the main difference between the success cases and the cases of failure lays in the quality of institutions. With grabber friendly institutions more natural resources push aggregate income down, while with producer friendly institutions more natural resources increase income. Such a theory finds strong support in data. A key question we also discuss is if resources in addition alter the quality of institutions. When that is the case, countries with bad institutions suffer a double resource curse - as the deterioration of institutions strenghtens the negative effect of more natural resources.Natural resources; Institutional quality; Growth; Rent-seeking

Why Do Voters Dismantle Checks and Balances?

Voters often dismantle constitutional checks and balances on the executive. If such checks and balances limit presidential abuses of power and rents, why do voters support their removal? We argue that by reducing politician rents, checks and balances also make it cheaper to bribe or ináuence politicians through non-electoral means. In weakly-institutionalized polities where such non-electoral ináuences, particularly by the better organized elite, are a major concern, voters may prefer a political system without checks and balances as a way of insulating politicians from these ináuences. When they do so, they are e§ectively accepting a certain amount of politician (presidential) rents in return for redistribution. We show that checks and balances are less likely to emerge when (equilibrium) politician rents are low; when the elite are better organized and are more likely to be able to ináuence or bribe politicians; and when inequality and potential taxes are high (which makes redistribution more valuable to the majority). We show that the main intuition, that checks and balances, by making politicians ìcheaper to bribe,î are potentially costly to the majority, is valid under di§erent ways of modeling the form of checks and balances.

Institutions and the resource curse

Countries rich in natural resources constitute both growth losers and growth winners. We claim that the main reason for these diverging experiences is differences in the quality of institutions. More natural resources push aggregate income down, when institutions are grabber friendly, while more resources raise income, when institutions are producer friendly. We test this theory building on Sachs and Warner's influential works on the resource curse. Our main hypothesis: that institutions are decisive for the resource curse, is confirmed. Our results are in sharp contrast to the claim by Sachs and Warner that institutions do not play a role.Natural resources, Institutional quality, Growth, Rent-seeking