When oil prices spiraled much higher in global markets between 2003 and 2008, the governments of several oil-producing nations — including Algeria, Bolivia, China, Ecuador, Russia and Venezuela — responded by expropriating local assets of independent oil companies that had contracted to operate in their territories, or by imposing large windfall taxes on their oil output. Struck by this complex, little-understood pattern of events, Arthur van Benthem, Wharton professor of business economics and public policy, and Johannes Stroebel, professor of economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, analyzed the fiscal data on 2,468 oil extraction agreements in 38 countries during that time period, in search of answers to key questions of interest to public policy makers and foreign investors alike.

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