Author Archives: Francisco R. Rodríguez

Estimating Causal Effects of Sanctions Impacts: What Role for Country-Level Studies?

How much have sanctions, and other politically induced restrictions on economic activity, affected the Venezuelan economy?  How much of the country’s decline can be attributed to these causes, as opposed to the more standard causes of poor policies and external shocks?  In this paper I offer a quantification of the effect of alternative causes. The bottom line is that around half of the country’s economic contraction between 2012 and 2020 can be explained as a result of sanctions and other politically induced restrictions such as the withdrawal of government recognition.

Sanctions and Imports of Essential Goods: A Closer Look at the Equipo Anova (2021) Results

We revisit the results of Equipo Anova (2021), who claim to find evidence of an improvement in Venezuelan imports of food and medicines associated with the adoption of U.S. financial sanctions towards Venezuela in 2017. We show that their results are consequence of data coding errors and questionable methodological choices, including the use an unreasonableContinue reading “Sanctions and Imports of Essential Goods: A Closer Look at the Equipo Anova (2021) Results”

¿Quién se beneficia de la licencia a Chevron de la OFAC?

En los últimos días, el gobierno estadounidense autorizó a Chevron Corporation vender petróleo venezolano en los mercados de EEUU, pero le prohibió realizar pagos de impuestos y regalías al gobierno venezolano. Argumentamos que la restricción de estos pagos es simbólica porque los pasivos fiscales no recaen en Chevron, sino en las empresas mixtas en las que Chevron es un socio minoritario y cuyas decisiones no puede controlar. Además, mostramos que mientras la recuperación del acceso a los mercados estadounidenses permita a las empresas mixtas de Chevron aumentar los niveles de producción, el gobierno de Maduro recibirá flujos adicionales de divisas que puede utilizar a voluntad. Este resultado se mantiene independientemente de si el incremento de los ingresos se utiliza para reducir los atrasos de la deuda de PDVSA con Chevron.

Who Benefits from OFAC’s Chevron License?

In recent days, the US government authorized Chevron Corporation to resell Venezuelan oil in US markets but barred it from making tax and royalty payments to the Venezuelan state. We argue that the restriction on these payments is symbolic because fiscal liabilities are incurred not by Chevron but by the joint ventures in which Chevron is a minority partner and whose decisions it is unable to control. Furthermore, we show that as long as regaining access to US markets enables Chevron joint ventures to increase production levels, the Maduro government will receive additional hard currency revenue flows which it can use at will. This result holds regardless of whether incremental revenues are used to reduce PDVSA’s debt arrears with Chevron.

Political Growth Collapses

We argue that economic collapses can result from the adoption by political actors of strategies that generate severe negative economic externalities for society. We establish the conditions for political conflict to become economically destructive and develop a diagnostics toolkit to identifywhen income declines are consequence of the breakdown of conflict-management arrangements.When political conflict drives aContinue reading “Political Growth Collapses”

The economic determinants of Venezuela’s hunger crisis

This paper argues that Venezuela’s hunger crisis was caused by the collapse of the country’s import capacity. I show evidence supporting the hypothesis that the key driver of the decrease in caloric intake was the decline of more than nine-tenths in oil revenues, which sparked an economic contraction and forced the economy to undertake massiveContinue reading “The economic determinants of Venezuela’s hunger crisis”

Es hora de aliviar las sanciones. Cuidado cómo lo haces.

Un comentario sobre Informe del Grupo de Trabajo de Venezuela del Atlantic Council Francisco Rodríguez. Director, Petróleo por Venezuela El Atlantic Council acaba de publicar un informe, “ Exploring Oil-Finded Humanitarian Frameworks for Venezuela ”, que evalúa las propuestas de programas humanitarios financiados con petróleo para Venezuela que compiten entre sí, y establece una serieContinue reading “Es hora de aliviar las sanciones. Cuidado cómo lo haces.”

It’s Time to Ease Sanctions. Careful How You Do It.

A comment on The Atlantic Council Venezuela Working Group’s “Exploring Oil-Funded Humanitarian Frameworks for Venezuela” Francisco Rodríguez. Director, Oil for Venezuela The Atlantic Council has just published a report, “Exploring Oil-Funded Humanitarian Frameworks for Venezuela,” that assesses competing oil-funded humanitarian program proposals for Venezuela and sets out a series of recommendations of general principles thatContinue reading “It’s Time to Ease Sanctions. Careful How You Do It.”