Fiscal dimension of oil sectors in the Post-Soviet Caspian countries: A new institutionalist approach


Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi, Uluslararası İlişkiler Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2014

Öğrenci: NAZLI ÖYKÜ US

Danışman: OKTAY FIRAT TANRISEVER

Özet:

The oil sector has a risky nature. Today, the main investors are increasingly more National Oil Companies; but captivation of private investors, either foreign or domestic, has playing a vital role. Investors evaluate their upstream projects’ profitability based not only on neoclassic macroeconomic analysis; but also the country's institutional development. The Post-Soviet oil producing Caspian countries, which were kept closed under the Soviet rule for 69 years, have been living a transition period. After the dissolution in 1991, all of them had the challenge to build their own institutional structures. Economic dependency type of system, established by the Soviet Union, was the hardest challenge these newly formed oil-abundant countries have faced. Although these countries have the same legacy of central planning and Soviet governance in their oil sectors, the fiscal regimes and property rights have been diversified during the last two decades. Although the resource curse literature accept the deteriorating side of the oil wealth on economic development of these countries; New Institutional Economics literature takes the institutions in the center of its analysis. The thesis examines the development of the two main formal institutions in Post-Soviet Caspian countries; the property rights and the fiscal regimes, within a New Institutional Economics framework. After an introductory chapter, second chapter describes the theory of NIE approach in general and towards the Post-Soviet transition economies. From the third chapter to the sixth chapter the formal institutions of the Post-Soviet Caspian countries are analysed one-by-one. Finally, in the concluding chapter, the comparative findings are presented.