The Politics of Corruption

Lecture 11: Windfalls: Foreign Aid, Natural Resources, and Elite Capture

Bogdan G. Popescu
bgpopescu@tec.mx

Tecnológico de Monterrey

Today

What happens when money flows into a political system without being earned through taxation?

By the end, students should be able to:

  • explain the fiscal-contract mechanism linking unearned revenue to weakened accountability
  • summarize one headline finding each from the aid literature (Andersen et al.) and the oil literature (Ross)
  • apply the windfall framework to Mexican oil revenues and Pemex