Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T19:21:31.472Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Institutions and the shale boom

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 September 2016

ILIA MURTAZASHVILI
ILIA MURTAZASHVILI*
Affiliation:
Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
*
*Email: ilia.murtazashvili@pitt.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper uses the institutional economics of Douglass North to explain three features of the shale boom: why fracking technology emerged in the United States, the rapid increase in production of natural gas in the United States and the uneven response to these new economic opportunities in shale-rich economies. It argues that the institutional matrix of the United States, in particular private ownership of minerals, encouraged experimentation on the barren Texas oil and gas fields, where fracking technology emerged and the rapid transfer of mineral rights to gas companies. Institutional entrepreneurs, namely landmen and lawyers, facilitated contracting between owners of mineral rights and drillers. Private ownership of minerals and an ideology supportive of drilling provide insight into the adoption of regulations that encourage hydraulic fracturing.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Institutional Economics , Volume 13 , Issue 1: Douglass C. North Memorial Issue , March 2017 , pp. 189 - 210
Copyright
Copyright © Millennium Economics Ltd 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Acemoglu, D. (2003), ‘Why not a Political Coase Theorem? Social Conflict, Commitment, and Politics’, Journal of Comparative Economics, 31 (4): 620–652.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Acemoglu, D., Johnson, S., and Robinson, J. A. (2002), ‘Reversal of Fortune: Geography and Institutions in the Making of the Modern World Income Distribution’, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 117 (4): 1231–1294.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Acemoglu, D., Johnson, S., and Robinson, J. A. (2003), ‘An African Success Story: Botswana’, in Rodrik, D. (ed.), Analytic Narratives on Economic Growth, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 80–119.Google Scholar
Acemoglu, D., Johnson, S., and Robinson, J. A. (2005), ‘Institutions as a Fundamental cause of Long-Run Growth’, in Aghion, P. and Durlauf, S. N. (eds.), Handbook of Economic Growth, vol. IA, Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Elsevier North-Holland, pp. 385–372.Google Scholar
Acemoglu, D. and Robinson, J. A. (2001), ‘The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation’, The American Economic Review, 91 (5): 1369–1401.Google Scholar
Anderson, T. L. and Hill, P. J. (1990), ‘The Race for Property Rights’, Journal of Law and Economics, 33 (1) 177–197.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arnold, G. and Holahan, R. (2014), ‘The Federalism of Fracking: How the Locus of Policy-Making Authority Affects Civic Engagement’, Publius, 44 (2): 344–368.Google Scholar
Bednar, J. (2008), The Robust Federation, New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blattman, C., Hartman, A., and Blair, R. (2014), ‘How to Promote Order and Property Rights Under Weak Rule of Law? An Experiment in Changing Dispute Resolution Behavior Through Community Education’, American Political Science Review, 108 (1): 100–120.Google Scholar
Boudet, H., Clarke, C., Bugden, D., Maibach, E., Roser-Renouf, C., and Leiserowitz, A. (2014), ‘“Fracking” Controversy and Communication: Using National Survey Data to Understand Public Perceptions of Hydraulic Fracturing’, Energy Policy, 65, 57–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bradley, R. L. (1996), Oil, Gas & Government: The US Experience, New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.Google Scholar
Bromley, D. W. (1991), Environment and Economy: Property Rights and Public Policy, Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers.Google Scholar
Bromley, D. W. (2006), Sufficient Reason: Volitional Pragmatism and the Meaning of Economic Institutions, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Bromley, D. W. (2009), ‘Abdicating Responsibility: The Deceits of Fisheries Policy’, Fisheries, 34 (6): 280–290.Google Scholar
Coase, R. (1960), ‘The Problem of Social Cost’, Journal of Law and Economics, 3 (1): 1–44.Google Scholar
Coase, R. H. (1937), ‘The Nature of the Firm’, Economica, 4 (16): 386–405.Google Scholar
Cole, D. H., Epstein, G., and Mcginnis, M. D. (2014), ‘Digging Deeper into Hardin's Pasture: The Complex Institutional Structure of “The Tragedy of the Commons”’, Journal of Institutional Economics, 10 (3): 353–369.Google Scholar
Collins, A. R. and Nkansah, K. (2015), ‘Divided Rights, Expanded Conflict: Split Estate Impacts on Surface Owner Perceptions of Shale Gas Drilling’, Land Economics, 91 (4): 688–703.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Commons, J. R. (1924), Legal Foundations of Capitalism, New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Cusick, M. (2014), ‘Survey: Pennsylvanians like Fracking more than New Yorkers’, StateImpact, 8 September.Google Scholar
DeLeire, T., Eliason, P., and Timmins, C. (2014), ‘Measuring the Employment Impacts of Shale Gas Development’, McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown University Working Paper.Google Scholar
Demsetz, H. (1967), ‘Toward a Theory of Property Rights’, American Economic Review, 57 (2): 347–359.Google Scholar
Denzau, A. T. and North, D. C. (1994), ‘Shared Mental Models: Ideologies and Institutions’, Kyklos, 47 (1): 3–31.Google Scholar
Diermeier, D., Ericson, J. M., Frye, T., and Lewis, S. (1997), ‘Credible Commitment and Property Rights: The Role of Strategic Interaction Between Political and Economic Actors’, in Weimer, D.L. (ed.), The Political Economy of Property Rights: Institutional Change and Credibility in the Reform of Centrally Planned Economies, New York: Cambridge University Press, 20–42.Google Scholar
Eggertsson, T. (1990), Economic Behavior and Institutions: Principles of Neoinstitutional Economics, New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ellickson, R. C. (1993), ‘Property in Land’, Yale Law Journal, 102, 1315–1400.Google Scholar
Etter, L. (2015), ‘Texas Landmen Left Out of Work as Oil Patch Boom Turns Bust’, Bloomberg, 23 March.Google Scholar
Fetzer, T. (2014), ‘Fracking Growth’, CEP Discussion Papers 1278.Google Scholar
Fitzgerald, T. (2010), ‘Evaluating Split Estates in Oil and Gas Leasing’, Land Economics, 86 (2): 294–312.Google Scholar
Fitzgerald, T. (2012), ‘Natural Resource Production Under Divided Ownership: Evidence from Coalbed Methane’, Review of Law & Economics, 8 (3): 719–757.Google Scholar
Fitzgerald, T. (2013), ‘Frackonomics: Some Economics of Hydraulic Fracturing’, Case Western Law Review, 63 (4): 1337–1362.Google Scholar
Foner, E. (1971), Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fry, M., Briggle, A., and Kincaid, J. (2015), ‘Fracking and Environmental (in) Justice in a Texas City’, Ecological Economics, 117, 97–107.Google Scholar
Gabriel, T. and Davenport, C. (2016), ‘“Fractivists” Increase Pressure on Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in New York’, New York Times, 4 April.Google Scholar
Gates, P. W. (1977), ‘Homesteading in the High Plains’, Agricultural History, 51 (1): 109–133.Google Scholar
Gehlbach, S. and Keefer, P. (2011) ‘Investment without Democracy: Ruling-Party Institutionalization and Credible Commitment in Autocracies’, Journal of Comparative Economics, 39 (2): 123–139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gelman, A. (2009), Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State: Why Americans Vote the Way they do, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Golden, J. M. and Wiseman, H. J. (2015), ‘The Fracking Revolution: Shale Gas as a Case Study in Innovation Policy’, Emory Law Journal, 64 (4): 955–1040.Google Scholar
Graham, J. D., Rupp, J. A., and Schenk, O. (2015), ‘Unconventional Gas Development in the USA: Exploring the Risk Perception Issues’, Risk Analysis, 35 (10): 1770–1788.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Greif, A. and Laitin, D. D. (2004), ‘A Theory of Endogenous Institutional Change’, American Political Science Review, 98 (4): 633–652.Google Scholar
Hausman, C. and Kellogg, R. (2015), ‘Welfare and Distributional Implications of Shale Gas’, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 50 (1): 71–125.Google Scholar
Hodgson, G. M. (1998), ‘The Approach of Institutional Economics’, Journal of Economic Literature, 36 (1): 166–192.Google Scholar
Holahan, R. and Arnold, G. (2013), ‘An Institutional Theory of Hydraulic Fracturing Policy’, Ecological Economics, 94, 127–134.Google Scholar
Humphries, M. (2013), ‘US Crude Oil and Natural Gas Production in Federal and Non-Federal Areas’, Washington: Congressional Research Service. CRS Report R42432. Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service.Google Scholar
Kahneman, D. and Tversky, A. (1979), ‘Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk’, Econometrica, 47 (2): 263–291.Google Scholar
Kelly-Detwiler, P. (2013), ‘Shale Leases: Promised Land’, Forbes, 3 January.Google Scholar
Kirzner, I. M. (1978), Competition and Entrepreneurship, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Knight, J. (1992), Institutions and Social Conflict, New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Knight, J. and North, D. C. (1997) ‘Explaining the complexity of institutional change’, in Weimer, D. L. (ed.), The Political Economy of Property Rights: Institutional Change and Credibility in the Reform of Centrally Planned Economies, New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 349–354.Google Scholar
Knight, J. and Sened, I. (eds.) (1995), Explaining Social Institutions, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Komesar, N. K. (1994), Imperfect Alternatives: Choosing Institutions in Law, Economics, and Public Policy, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kopsidis, M. and Bromley, D. W. (2015), ‘The French Revolution and German Industrialization: Dubious Models and Doubtful Causality’, Journal of Institutional Economics, 12 (1): 1–30.Google Scholar
Kriesky, J., Goldstein, B. D., Zell, K., and Beach, S. (2013), ‘Differing Opinions About Natural Gas Drilling in Two Adjacent Counties with Different Levels of Drilling Activity’, Energy Policy, 58, 228–236.Google Scholar
Leeson, P. T. and Boettke, P. J. (2009), ‘Two-Tiered Entrepreneurship and Economic Development’, International Review of Law and Economics, 29 (3): 252–259.Google Scholar
Legere, L. (2016), ‘Analysis says Wolf's Proposed Severance Tax Rate is Among Nation's Highest’, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 3 May.Google Scholar
Libecap, G. D. (1989), Contracting for Property Rights, New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Libecap, G. D. (2005), ‘Chinatown: Owens Valley and Western Water Reallocation-Getting the Record Straight and What it Means for Water Markets’, Texas Law Review, 83 (7): 2055–2089.Google Scholar
Libecap, G. D. (2007), ‘The Assignment of Property Rights on the Western Frontier: Lessons for Contemporary Environmental and Resource Policy’, Journal of Economic History, 67 (2), 257.Google Scholar
Libecap, G. D. (2009) ‘Chinatown Revisited: Owens Valley and Los Angeles—Bargaining Costs and Fairness Perceptions of the First Major Water Rights Exchange’, Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, 25 (2): 311–338.Google Scholar
Libecap, G. D. and Lueck, D. (2011), ‘The Demarcation of Land and the Role of Coordinating Property Institutions’, Journal of Political Economy, 119 (3): 426–467.Google Scholar
Libecap, G. D. and Wiggins, S. N. (1985), ‘The Influence of Private Contractual Failure on Regulation: The Case of Oil Field Unitization’, The Journal of Political Economy, 93 (4): 690–714.Google Scholar
Mahoney, J. and Thelen, K. (2009), Explaining Institutional Change: Ambiguity, Agency, and Power, New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mason, J. R. (2013), ‘Beyond the Congressional Budget Office: The Additional Economic Effects of Immediately Opening Federal Lands to Oil and Gas Leasing’, Institute for Energy Research, Washington, DC: Institute for Energy Research.Google Scholar
McCloskey, D. N. (2010), Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can't Explain the Modern World, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
McGinnis, M. D. and Ostrom, E. (2012), ‘Reflections on Vincent Ostrom, Public Administration, and Polycentricity’, Public Administration Review, 72 (1): 15–25.Google Scholar
McGuire, M. C. and Olson, M. (1996), ‘The Economics of Autocracy and Majority Rule: The Invisible Hand and the Use of Force’, Journal of Economic Literature, 34 (1): 72–96.Google Scholar
McKinley, J. (2013), ‘Still Undecided on Fracking, Cuomo Won't Press for Health Study's Release’, New York Times, 16 December.Google Scholar
Mittal, S., Rakove, J. N., and Weingast, B. R. (2011), ‘The Constitutional Choices of 1787 and their Consequences’, in Irwin, D. A. (ed.), Founding Choices: American Economic Policy in the 1790s, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, pp. 25–56.Google Scholar
Moser, P. (2013), ‘Patents and Innovation: Evidence from Economic History’, The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 27 (1): 23–44.Google Scholar
Muehlenbachs, L., Spiller, E., and Timmins, C. (2015), ‘The Housing Market Impacts of Shale Gas Development’, American Economic Review, 105 (12): 3633–3659.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murtazashvili, I. (2013), The Political Economy of the American Frontier, New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Murtazashvili, I. and Murtazashvili, J. (2016), ‘When Does the Emergence of a Stationary Bandit Lead to Property Insecurity?’, Rationality and Society, 28 (3): 335–60.Google Scholar
Myerson, R. (2014), ‘Constitutional Structures for a Strong Democracy: Considerations on the Government of Pakistan’, World Development, 53, 46–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Navarro, M. (2011), ‘Signing Drilling Leases, and Now Having Regrets’, New York Times, 22 September.Google Scholar
North, D. C. (1956), ‘International Capital Flows and the Development of the American West’, The Journal of Economic History, 16 (4): 493–505.Google Scholar
North, D. C. (1966), Growth and Welfare in the American Past: A New Economic History, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
North, D. C. (1981), Structure and Change in Economic History, New York: W. W. Norton & Company.Google Scholar
North, D. C. (1990), Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance, New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
North, D. C. (2005), Understanding the Process of Economic Change, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
North, D. C. and Rutten, A. (1987), ‘The Northwest Ordinance in Historical Perspective’, in Klingaman, D. C. and Vedder, R. K. (eds.), Essays on the Economy of the Old Northwest, Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 19–31.Google Scholar
North, D. C. and Thomas, R. P. (1973), The Rise of the Western World: A New Economic History, New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
North, D. C., Wallis, J. J., and Weingast, B. R. (2009), Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History, New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
North, D. C. and Weingast, B. R. (1989), ‘Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century England’, The Journal of Economic History, 49 (4): 803–832.Google Scholar
Olken, B. A. (2007), ‘Monitoring Corruption: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Indonesia’, Journal of Political Economy, 115 (2): 200–249.Google Scholar
Olken, B. A. (2010), ‘Direct Democracy and Local Public Goods: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Indonesia’, American Political Science Review, 104 (2): 243–267.Google Scholar
Olmstead, S. M., Muehlenbachs, L. A., Shih, J.-S., Chu, Z., and Krupnick, A. J. (2013), ‘Shale Gas Development Impacts on Surface Water Quality in Pennsylvania’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110 (13): 4962–4967.Google Scholar
Olson, M. (1965), The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Olson, M. (1993), ‘Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development’, American Political Science Review, 87 (3): 567–576.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ostrom, E. (1990), Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action, New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ostrom, E. (2007), ‘A Diagnostic Approach for Going Beyond Panaceas’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104 (39): 15181–15187.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ostrom, E. (2009), ‘A General Framework for Analyzing Sustainability of Social-Ecological Systems’, Science, 325 (5939): 419–422.Google Scholar
Ostrom, V., Tiebout, C. M., and Warren, R. (1961), ‘The Organization of Government in Metropolitan Areas: A Theoretical Inquiry’, American Political Science Review, 55 (4): 831–842.Google Scholar
Phillips, S. (2016), ‘Wolf Proposes 6.5 Percent Tax on Marcellus Shale’, StateImpact, 9 February.Google Scholar
Pierson, P. (2000), ‘Increasing Returns, Path Dependence, and the Study of Politics’, American Political Science Review, 94 (2): 251–267.Google Scholar
Rabe, B. G. and Borick, C. (2013), ‘Conventional Politics for Unconventional Drilling? Lessons from Pennsylvania's Early Move into Fracking Policy Development’, Review of Policy Research, 30 (3): 321–340.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richardson, N., Gottlieb, M., Krupnick, A., and Wiseman, H. J. (2013), ‘The State of State Shale Gas Regulation’, Resources for the Future Report.Google Scholar
Riker, W. H. and Weimer, D. L. (1993), ‘The Economic and Political Liberalization of Socialism: The Fundamental Problem of Property Rights’, Social Philosophy and Policy, 10 (2): 79–102.Google Scholar
Riker, W. H. and Weimer, D. L. (1995), ‘The Political Economy of Transformation: Liberalization and Property Rights’, in Banks, J. and Hanushek, E. (ed.), Modern Political Economy: Old Topics, New Directions, New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 80–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Root, H. L. (1989), ‘Tying the King's Hands Credible Commitments and Royal Fiscal Policy during the Old Regime’, Rationality and Society, 1 (2): 240–258.Google Scholar
Sened, I. (1997), The Political Institution of Private Property, New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Siegel, F. (2013), ‘Fracking, Poverty and the New Liberal Gentry’, Wall Street Journal, 7 November.Google Scholar
Small, M. J., Stern, P. C., Bomberg, E., Christopherson, S. M., Goldstein, B. D., Israel, A. L., Jackson, R. B., Krupnick, A., Mauter, M. S., and Nash, J. (2014), ‘Risks and Risk Governance in Unconventional Shale Gas Development’, Environmental Science & Technology, 48 (15): 8289–8297.Google Scholar
Sovacool, B. K. (2014), ‘Cornucopia or curse? Reviewing the costs and benefits of shale gas hydraulic fracturing (fracking)’, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 37, 249–264.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spence, D. B. (2013), ‘Responsible Shale Gas Production: Moral Outrage vs. Cool Analysis’, Fordham Environmental Law Review, 25, 141–191.Google Scholar
The Economist (2013a), ‘Deep Sigh of Relief’, http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21573279-shale-gas-and-oil-bonanza-transforming-americas-energy-outlook-and-boosting-its 16 March.Google Scholar
The Economist (2013b), ‘Frack to the Future’, http://www.economist.com/news/business/21571171-extracting-europes-shale-gas-and-oil-will-be-slow-and-difficult-business-frack-future 2 February.Google Scholar
The Economist (2013c), ‘The Father of Fracking’, http://www.economist.com/news/business/21582482-few-businesspeople-have-done-much-change-world-george-mitchell-father 3 August.Google Scholar
The Economist (2014a), ‘Dead-Cow Bounce: Politics is the Biggest Hurdle to Developing the Enormous Vaca Muerta field’, http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21613314-politics-biggest-hurdle-developing-enormous-vaca-muerta-field-dead-cow-bounce 23 August.Google Scholar
The Economist (2014b) ‘Shale Game: China Drastically Reduces its Ambitions to be a Big Shale-Gas Producer’, http://www.economist.com/news/business/21614187-china-drastically-reduces-its-ambitions-be-big-shale-gas-producer-shale-game 30 August.Google Scholar
The Economist (2015), ‘Time to Get Fracking’, http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21654399-britain-inches-towards-getting-shale-gas-slow-start 20 June.Google Scholar
The Wall Street Journal (2012), ‘The Shale Gas Secret: Why has Drilling Boomed in America, While it Struggles in Europe?’, http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303919504577520421300962752 16 July.Google Scholar
Timmins, C. and Vissing, A. (2014), Shale gas leases: Is bargaining efficient and what are the implications for homeowners if it is not. Working paper, Department of Economics, Duke University. Available at http://public.econ.duke.edu/~timmins/Timmins_Vissing_11_15.pdf.Google Scholar
Tullock, G. (1967), ‘The Welfare Costs of Tariffs, Monopolies, and Theft’, Economic Inquiry, 5 (3): 224–232.Google Scholar
Umbeck, J. (1977), ‘A Theory of Contract Choice and the California Gold Rush’, Journal of Law and Economics, 20 (2): p. 421.Google Scholar
U.S. EIA (2015), Annual Energy Outlook 2015.Google Scholar
Vissing, A. (2015), ‘Private Contracts as Regulation: A Study of Private Lease Negotiations Using the Texas Natural Gas Industry’, Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, 44 (2): 120–137.Google Scholar
Walker, A. W. (1928), ‘Nature of the Property Interests Created by an Oil and Gas Lease in Texas’, Texas Law Review, 7 (1): pp. 1–49.Google Scholar
Wallis, J. J. and North, D. (1986), ‘Measuring the Transaction Sector in the American Economy, 1870–1970’, in Long-Term Factors in American Economic Growth. University of Chicago Press, 95–162.Google Scholar
Weber, J. G. (2012), ‘The Effects of a Natural Gas Boom on Employment and Income in Colorado, Texas, and Wyoming’, Energy Economics, 34 (5): 1580–1588.Google Scholar
Weber, J. G., Burnett, J., and Xiarchos, I. M. (2016), ‘Broadening Benefits from Natural Resource Extraction: Housing Values and Taxation of Natural Gas Wells as Property’, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 35 (3): 587–614.Google Scholar
Weimer, D. L. (ed.) (1997), The Political Economy of Property Rights: Institutional Change and Credibility in the Reform of Centrally Planned Economies. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Weingast, B. R. (1995), ‘The Economic Role of Political Institutions: Market-Preserving Federalism and Economic Development’, Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, 11 (1): 1–31.Google Scholar
Weingast, B. R. (1997), ‘The Political Foundations of Democracy and the Rule of Law’, American Political Science Review, 91 (2): 245–263.Google Scholar
Wiggins, S. N. and Libecap, G. D. (1985), ‘Oil Field Unitization: Contractual Failure in the Presence of Imperfect Information’, The American Economic Review, 75 (3): 368–385.Google Scholar
Wilber, T. (2012), Under the Surface: Fracking, Fortunes, and the Fate of the Marcellus Shale. Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Williamson, O. E. (2005), ‘The Economics of Governance’, American Economic Review, 95 (2): 1–18.Google Scholar
Wiseman, H. J. (2009), ‘Untested Waters: The Rise of Hydraulic Fracturing in Oil and Gas Production and the Need to Revisit Regulation’, Fordham Environmental Law Review, 20, pp. 115–71.Google Scholar
Yeatts, G. M. (1997), ‘Subsurface Wealth: The Struggle for Privatization in Argentina’, Journal of Energy Literature, 3, 115–125.Google Scholar
Yoo, D. and Steckel, R. H. (2016), ‘Property Rights and Economic Development: The Legacy of Japanese Colonial Institutions’, Journal of Institutional Economics, 12 (3): 623–650.Google Scholar
Zuckerman, G. (2013a), ‘Breakthrough: The Accidental Discovery That Revolutionized American Energy’, The Atlantic, 6 November.Google Scholar
Zuckerman, G. (2013b), The frackers: The Outrageous Inside Story of the New Billionaire Wildcatters. New York: Penguin.Google Scholar