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”
Category Archives: Working Papers
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”
Sanctioning Venezuela
This paper presents a summary of the evidence on the economic effects of financial and oil sanctions on Venezuela between 2017 and 2020. This paper is a chapter of my upcoming book, Scorched Earth: The Political Economy of Venezuela’s Collapse, 2012-2020.
Sanciones y producción petrolera: evidencia de la Faja Petrolífera del Orinoco
En esta investigación usamos una nueva base de datos de producción mensual en 33 bloques de la Faja Petrolífera del Orinoco para estimar el efecto de las sanciones financieras y petroleras sobre la industria petrolera venezolana. Hallamos efectos económica y estadísticamente significativos que indican que en ausencia de sanciones, la producción de la Faja sería entre tres y cinco veces su nivel actual.
Sanctions and Oil Production: Evidence from Venezuela’s Orinoco Basin
We use the differential access to credit of oil firms in Venezuela’s Orinoco Basin to identify the economic effects of financial and oil sanctions on firm output. Using a panel of monthly firm-level oil production from 2008-2020, we provide estimates showing that financial and oil sanctions led to large losses in oil production among firms which had access to international credit prior to sanctions. The estimated effects explain around half of the output drop experienced in those firms since the adoption of sanctions, and argue that in the absence of sanctions, production in the Basin would be between three to five times its current level.
Venezuela’s economic collapse: implications for Latin America and the Caribbean
The political economy of Maduro’s economic policies
Response to Irfan Nooruddin’s“Comment on the 2019 Bolivia Presidential Election and OAS Statistical Analysis,” August 19, 2020
Do shifts in late-counted votes signal fraud? Evidence from Bolivia
with Nicolás Idrobo and Dorothy Kronick, Social Science Research Network, June 2020
Reestructuración bajo incertidumbre radical: el caso de Argentina
El caso de Argentina es sintomático de una crisis de confianza, como lo explican los modelos de equilibrios múltiples de crisis de balanza de pagos. El marco de sostenibilidad de la deuda con el FMI debería ser lo suficientemente flexible como para permitir soluciones de reestructuración y mejoramiento del bienestar.
Francisco R. Rodríguez 