State Ownership and the Resource Curse: A New Dataset on Nationalizations in the Oil Industry

Abstract

Recent expropriations in the oil sectors of Argentina, Bolivia, and Venezuela have renewed interest in the study of nationalizations in the oil industry. This paper analyzes oil nationalizations using a new dataset for 62 oil-producing countries for the period 1905-2005. As existing data on nationalizations are improperly measured and censored, this study considers a new approach to measuring nationalization through an analysis of national oil companies (NOCs). While the bulk of this paper is exploratory and descriptive, it offers a statistical analysis of additional determinants of nationalizations: production cycles, geology, and the advent of OPEC. The paper also confirms previous findings that commodity price shocks correspond to increased probability of nationalizations, but finds that this is only true for the post-1966 period.

Keywords: nationalization, national oil companies, resource curse, OPEC