IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/13332.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Profit Sharing Between Governments and Multinationals in Natural Resource Extraction: Evidence From a Firm-Level Panel

Author

Listed:
  • Margaret S. McMillan
  • Andrew R. Waxman

Abstract

The "fairness" of negotiations between countries and resource extracting firms is subject to many accusations and counter-accusations and may be argued, in many instances, to impact the subsequent economic benefit to a host country from extraction. This paper examines the role of host country governance on the share of government take from extraction revenue. We attempt to disentangle a number of competing hypotheses regarding the relationship between governance and government take using panel data for US resource extracting multinational corporations (MNCs) operating abroad from the Bureau of Economic Analysis of the US Department of Commerce over 1982-1999. Using fixed effects regression, we find a statistically significant positive impact of institutional quality on government take. The nature of this relationship -- whether this represents the result of a "corruption premium" paid by US MNCs or the exploitation of poor governance in negotiating government take -- is not completely clear. The evidence presented does, however, indicate that potential forms of bargaining power other than institutional quality (e.g., outside options to the deal) do increase government take, indicating that bargaining power may nonetheless be an important factor.

Suggested Citation

  • Margaret S. McMillan & Andrew R. Waxman, 2007. "Profit Sharing Between Governments and Multinationals in Natural Resource Extraction: Evidence From a Firm-Level Panel," NBER Working Papers 13332, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13332
    Note: ITI
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w13332.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dani Rodrik, 1999. "Democracies Pay Higher Wages," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 707-738.
    2. Helliwell, John F., 1994. "Empirical Linkages Between Democracy and Economic Growth," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 24(2), pages 225-248, April.
    3. Shang-Jin Wei, 2000. "Corruption, composition of capital flows, and currency crises," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2429, The World Bank.
    4. Robert J. Barro, 1998. "Determinants of Economic Growth: A Cross-Country Empirical Study," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262522543, December.
    5. Shang-Jin Wei, 2000. "How Taxing is Corruption on International Investors?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 82(1), pages 1-11, February.
    6. Adelman, M. A., 1991. "User cost in oil production," Resources and Energy, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 217-240, September.
    7. Newbery, David M, 1992. "The Open-Loop von Stackelberg Equilibrium in the Cartel versus Fringe Model: A Reply," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 102(415), pages 1485-1487, November.
    8. Newbery, David M G, 1981. "Oil Prices, Cartels, and the Problem of Dynamic Inconsistency," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 91(363), pages 617-646, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. van der Ploeg, Frederick & Rohner, Dominic, 2012. "War and natural resource exploitation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(8), pages 1714-1729.
    2. Hajzler, Christopher, 2014. "Resource-based FDI and expropriation in developing economies," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1), pages 124-146.
    3. Alsagr, Naif & Ozturk, Ilhan, 2024. "Natural resources rent and green investment: Does institutional quality matter?," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    4. Issabayev, Murat & Pelzman, Joseph, 2019. "A model of FDI spillover in a natural resource rich LDC," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    5. Restrepo, Diana & Correia, Ricardo & Población, Javier, 2012. "Political risk and corporate investment decisions," DEE - Working Papers. Business Economics. WB 13114, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía de la Empresa.
    6. Di Corato, Luca, 2013. "Profit sharing under the threat of nationalization," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 295-315.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mishra, Sudhanshu K, 2018. "A Simultaneous Equation Model of Globalization, Corruption, Democracy, Human Development and Social Progress," MPRA Paper 84213, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Hibrahim Limi Kouotou & Boniface Ngah Epo, 2022. "Duration of heads of state in power and economic growth: a Sub-Saharan African tale," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 42(2), pages 1153-1170.
    3. Carl Henrik Knutsen, 2012. "Democracy and economic growth: A survey of arguments and results," International Area Studies Review, Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, vol. 15(4), pages 393-415, December.
    4. Mishra, SK, 2017. "Are Democratic Regimes Antithetical to Globalization?," MPRA Paper 83321, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Kosack, Stephen, 2003. "Effective Aid: How Democracy Allows Development Aid to Improve the Quality of Life," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 1-22, January.
    6. Torsten Persson & Guido Tabellini, 2009. "Democratic Capital: The Nexus of Political and Economic Change," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 88-126, July.
    7. Pettersson, Jan, 2003. "Democracy, Consolidation and Growth," Research Papers in Economics 2002:16, Stockholm University, Department of Economics, revised 15 Dec 2004.
    8. Ruiz Pozuelo, Julia & Slipowitz, Amy & Vuletin, Guillermo, 2016. "Democracy Does Not Cause Growth: The Importance of Endogeneity Arguments," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 7758, Inter-American Development Bank.
    9. Mark Gradstein & Branko Milanovic, 2004. "Does Libertè = Egalité? A Survey of the Empirical Links between Democracy and Inequality with Some Evidence on the Transition Economies," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(4), pages 515-537, September.
    10. John McArthur & Francis Teal, 2002. "Corruption and firm performance in Africa," CSAE Working Paper Series 2002-10, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    11. Jeffrey A. Frankel & Shang-Jin Wei, 2004. "Managing Macroeconomic Crises," NBER Working Papers 10907, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Jac C Heckelman & Benjamin Powell, 2010. "Corruption and the Institutional Environment for Growth," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 52(3), pages 351-378, September.
    13. Freund, Caroline & Jaud, Melise, 2013. "Regime Change, Democracy and Growth," CEPR Discussion Papers 9282, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. Hellmanzik, Christiane, 2013. "Democracy and economic outcomes: Evidence from the superstars of modern art," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 58-69.
    15. Nazif Durmaz & John Kagochi, 2018. "Democracy and Inter-Regional Trade Enhancement in Sub-Saharan Africa: Gravity Model," Economies, MDPI, vol. 6(3), pages 1-17, August.
    16. Oriana Bandiera & Gilat Levy, 2010. "Diversity and the Power of the Elites inDemocraticSocieties: A Model and a Test," STICERD - Economic Organisation and Public Policy Discussion Papers Series 018, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    17. Djankov, Simeon & Amin, Mohammad, 2009. "Democracy and Reforms," CEPR Discussion Papers 7151, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson, 2008. "Persistence of Power, Elites, and Institutions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(1), pages 267-293, March.
    19. Stéphane Straub, 2000. "Factores determinantes empíricos de las buenas instituciones: ¿sabemos algo a ciencia cierta?," Research Department Publications 4216, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F23 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - Multinational Firms; International Business

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13332. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.