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Browsing Public Policy by Author "Araral, Eduardo"

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    Conflict and Cooperation in Global Commons: Theory and Evidence from the Caspian Sea
    (IGITUR, UTRECHT PUBLISHING & ARCHIVING SERVICES, 2019-06) Orazgaliyev, Serik; Araral, Eduardo
    The conventional literature on the commons involves small, local resources such as coastal fisheries, community forestry, small-scale irrigation, and community pasture. We focus on conflict and cooperation in the Caspian Sea - a global commons - involving five claimant countries as well as interests of major powers (the United States, European Union, and China). Building on the work of Stern and Young on the study of conflict and cooperation in global commons, we model the case as a prisoner's dilemma game with the two different outcomes. In the North Caspian Sea, competing claimant countries - Russia, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan - have agreed to cooperate and solve their differences over ownership of oil fields. In contrast, claimants in the South Caspian Sea - Azerbaijan, Iran, and Turkmenistan - have failed to cooperate despite decades of trying. Using analytic narratives, we suggest that politics (or strategic calculations) could help explain these two different outcomes. In making these calculations, countries will act in their rational self-interest, given the prospects of international anarchy. We suggest that this realist account can be partly explained by the convergence of economic interests, geopolitics, and cultural distance. We argue that the study of global commons would benefit from understanding realist theories of international relations.
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    Determinants of Bribery: Theory and Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa
    (African Development Review, 2016-06-01) Pelizzo, Riccardo; Araral, Eduardo; Pak, Anton; Xun, Wu
    The paper investigates the determinants of bribery in sub-Saharan Africa by using probit models and data from the World Bank's Enterprise Survey of 10,457 firms in 30 countries in sub-Saharan Africa from 2009 to 2013. By doing so we find that securing a government contract is the most significant motivation for bribery and that overall, the propensity to bribe depends on the size of the firm as well as the predictability of the regulatory environment. Our findings have similarities and differences compared to Asian firms. The paper also highlights that the incidence and the determinants of bribery vary across the four sub-regions. On the basis of this evidence we suggest that when it comes to anti-corruption strategies, one size does not fit all and that country-specific and region-specific strategies should be adopted to address context-specific needs and conditions.