The perils of unearned foreign income.

摘要

This dissertation is comprised of 3 stand alone articles (essays) that examine how predominantly authoritarian governments manage and often thrive in the presence of a particular subset of international capital: unearned foreign income in the form of foreign aid and remittances. Building on the same theoretical framework, each article provides a clear causal mechanism explaining how an authoritarian government can harness foreign aid and/or remittances to its advantage. These mechanisms are patronage, corruption, and political repression. As endogeneity bias is likely to plague the results, the essays introduce novel strategies to mitigate these concerns.