Timing and Institutions: Determinants of the Ownership Structure in the Oil and Gas Industry in Canada and Norway

In response to 1973 oil shock, both the Canadian and Norwegian states expanded public corporate ownership in the oil and gas industry. This thesis questions why the public share of total corporate ownership in the oil industry was greater in Norway than in Canada, and why Petro-Canada was privatized completely while Statoil was not. Two hypotheses are tested from a historical institutionalist perspective. First, the timing of oil development determined whether the private sector would establish itself as the dominant player in the oil and gas industry (in Canada) or not (in Norway) before the 1973 oil shock triggered government interest in public corporate ownership. Second, overlapping jurisdiction over oil resources (in Canada) undermined the effectiveness of mechanisms of reproduction of public corporate ownership. In Norway, the later discovery of oil thus gave the state a stronger bargaining position relative to the oil industry, and in a unitary state the uncontroversial redistributional activities of Statoil attracted more vested interests.