Canonical work in the authoritarian politics literature identifies economic rents and policy concessions as critically important. Both, it is assumed, are used by incumbent autocrats to induce conformity to the regime's policy agenda. 3/

We leverage exogenous shocks to the price of oil (rents) and cabinet appointments (concessions) to assess the efficacy of these strategies. Because the Council of Ministers (cabinet) votes on each law, we have unusually precise insight into the regime's preferences. 4/