Commodity terms of trade shocks and political transitions

Abstract

In this paper, we estimate the effects of relative international commodity prices on political transitions accounting for time trends (since democracy might evolve in waves) and the fact that different autocratic regime types might respond differently. A standard deviation (2.1 percentage points) decrease in the growth rate of our 3-year moving-average relative price index increases the democratic transition probability by 0.5 percentage points or 13% of the mean probability. The transition probability moves nearly one for one with economic growth. Military autocracies might democratize after positive shocks. The autocratictransition effects are negative but insignificant.

Technology adoption in autocratic economies: The role of fiscal capacity

“…The country fixed effects alone do not address this issue completely given that oil prices and quantities fluctuate, which can cause large CTFP fluctuations even within countries. Although there is no standard definition of fuel exporters, I follow Janus et al (2022), who identify net fossil fuel exporters as countries whose fuel exports from 1970 to 2006 exceeded their imports and 2% of GDP. These countries include Angola, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bolivia, Cameroon, Canada, Colombia, Ecuador, Egypt, Gabon, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Libya, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Trinidad &Tobago, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela.…”