CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2007
| Author | Boksay, Endre Stephan William |
|---|---|
| Title | The Effects of Ownership Structure and Exogenous Shocks on State Capacity and Institutions in Resource-Rich States: A Case Study of Russia |
| Summary | Despite what a growing amount of research confirming evidence of the “curse” in the resource-rich Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries, authors Jones Luong and Erika Weinthal argue that Russia indeed has found a potential “path out of the “resource curse”. The authors find the answer to be through the privatization and transfer of its vast oil reserves to domestic owners Unlike most of the “resource curse” literature, they find that the ownership structure of a country’s resource sector matters – and can have a significant impact on a country’s institutions. Despite evidence showing this shift towards better institutions - exemplified by Russia's new Tax Code, Russia has recently seen a growing amount of its resources fall back into the hands of the state. Given these recent events, this paper seeks to reexamine the experience of Russia and to test Jones Luong and Weinthal's claims using alternative state capacity indicators. I find that in fact, although Russia has exhibited better indicators than its resource-rich neighbors, it has non-the-less been plagued with low indicators relative to other post communist countries. I argue this is in part due to its legacy of poor property rights protection; the maintenance of a system "partial reforms" by the "early winners" of transition. Subsequently I show that while indeed institutions improved after the 1998 crisis, they once again changed after the rise is sustained rise in oil prices from 1999-present. These exogenous shocks caused a renewed fear of poor property rights protection and the continued observation of greater state participation and control of the Russia's oil industry. |
| Supervisor | Greskovits, Bela |
| Department | International Relations MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2007/boksay_endre.pdf |
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