Every dictator dislikes free media. Yet, many nondemocratic countries have partially free or almost free media. In this article, we develop a theory of media freedom in dictatorships and provide systematic statistical evidence in support of this theory. In our model, free media allow a dictator to provide incentives to bureaucrats and therefore to improve the quality of government. The importance of this benefit varies with the natural resource endowment. In resource-rich countries, bureaucratic incentives are less important for the dictator; hence, media freedom is less likely to emerge. Using panel data, we show that controlling for country fixed effects, media are less free in oil-rich economies, with the effect especially pronounced in nondemocratic regimes. These results are robust to model specification and the inclusion of various controls, including the level of economic development, democracy, country size, size of government, and others.

The paper studies the determinants of internal migration in Russia. Using panel data on gross region-to-region migration flows in 1992-99, we estimate the effect of economic, political and social factors. Although overall migration is rather low, it turns out that its intensity does depend on economic factors even controlling for fixed effects for each origin-destination pair. People move from poorer and job scarce regions with worse public good provision to those which are richer and prospering better both in terms of employment prospects and public goods. Migration is, however, constrained by the lack of liquidity; for the poorest regions, an increase in income raises rather than decreases outmigration. Our estimates imply that up to a third of Russian regions are locked in poverty traps.JEL classifications: P23, J61, P36, R23.

Using a unique dataset, we describe the degree of ownership concentration in Russian economy and its role in shaping economic and political institutions in Russia. In particular, we find that Russian "oligarchs" do control a substantial part of the economy. While the relative weight of their firms in Russian economy is huge, they do not seem to be excessively large by the standards of the global economy where most of them are operating. The oligarchs seem to run their firms more efficiently than other Russian owners controlling for industry, region and size.