Group Size, Attribution, and the Politics of Export Bans in Africa

• In Event: The Political Economy of Rural Mobilization and Threat in the Developing World

Abstract

This paper sets out to answer the question why African governments aiming to industrialize their economies introduce export bans on some commodities and not others. Based on a critical review of potential political economy explanations, it forwards the hypothesis that governments fear restricting the export of commodities produced by a larger share of the population, as their producers tend to possess significant potential to endanger the political survival of rulers. Importantly, the paper argues large producer groups can unleash this potential because severe export bans are clearly attributable to the government, the harshness and universality of its impact unites them, and equally affected (yet wealthier and better-organized) traders can help them overcome their usual Olsonian collective action problems of poor coordination. To test this assumption, original panel data on country-commodity-specific export bans and employment were collected, allowing for a large-N comparative analysis of over 2,000 country-commodity-years. Holding a sizable vector of control variables constant and employing a range of different estimation strategies, this study finds strong and robust empirical support for the core hypothesis: a one percent increase in the share of the working population gaining significant income from producing a commodity, decreases the odds of the government introducing an export ban on that commodity by 58%. Furthermore, by showing that the reverse is true for low export taxes and that commodities with high sunk costs are less likely to be severely restricted, it provides important additional evidence that the role of attribution and the size of the involved stakes are particularly relevant factors that require greater attention in future research.

Author

• Nicolai Schulz, London School of Economics and Political Science