Rent Seeking, Revolutionary Threat and Coups in Non-Democracies

What happens during ​political transition processes in autocracies in the aftermath of coups? Presenting findings ​from recent research that he has conducted with SPP Associate Professor Michael Dorsch, Maarek will argue that the likelihood of a coup is related to the threat of revolution​, and that the reason that rulers extract rents for the elite ​is to prevent coups. By doing so, rulers worsen economic outcomes and disadvantage their citizens. ​There are differences​, however,​ in the efficiency with which ​rulers are able to extract rents. The impact ​that​ rent extraction ​has ​on economic outcomes depends on the type of ruler. Economic outcomes are also subject to economic shocks and workers make inferences ​about the types of rulers in their society. In his presentation, Maarek will present data that he and Dorsch have collected on economic shocks, coups, and popular unrest using fixed effects and IV regressions​.

Paul Maarek is an assistant professor at the University of Cergy-Pontoise. He earned his PhD at the Aix-Marseille School of Economics and completed a post-doctorate fellowship at the Central Bank of France. During his PhD and post-doctorate, his primary research interest was the sharing of value added in economics from both a theoretical and an empirical perspective. His current research focuses on political economy, in particular the political processes in autocracies.