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Autocratic Legislatures and Expropriation Risk

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 2015

Matthew Charles Wilson  and
Joseph Wright
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Abstract

An important question for international investors concerns the relationship between political institutions and property rights. Yet a debate remains over whether authoritarian institutions promote favorable investment climates. Using data on oil nationalization in a sample of autocracies, this study finds that legislatures are correlated with lower expropriation risk in non-personalist dictatorships, but a higher risk of nationalization in personalist regimes. The results show a consistent pattern between authoritarian institutions and property protections, for which context matters.

Type
Articles
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 47 , Issue 1 , January 2017 , pp. 1 - 17
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2015 

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Footnotes

*

Department of Political Science, West Virginia University (email: matthew.wilson@mail.wvu.edu); Department of Political Science, Pennsylvania State University (email: josephgwright@gmail.com). Online appendices and data replication sets are available at http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1017/S0007123415000149.

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