Between 1991 and 2003, Saudi Aramco sold crude to U.S. reneries at a substantial discount, with a total cost of approximately 8.5 billion dollars. This paper assesses the incidence of these discount rents in the U.S. market and yields the rst empirical evidence for the use of oil as a tool of political leverage through transfers to American rms. Using panel variation in discount receipts, I nd that rents were captured by reners as prots and did not pass through into retail gasoline prices. Discounts were also associated with increases in reners’ political donations and strategic reallocations of these contributions.

中文翻译：

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外国礼物是否购买公司政治行为？来自沙特原油折扣计划的证据

1991年至2003年间，沙特阿美以大幅折扣向美国炼油厂出售原油，总成本约为85亿美元。本文评估了这些贴现租金在美国市场的发生率，并为将石油用作通过向美国企业转移石油作为政治影响力的工具提供了第一个经验证据。使用折扣收据的面板变化，发现租金被 reners 捕获为利润，并没有传递到零售汽油价格。折扣还与 reners 的政治捐款和这些捐款的战略重新分配的增加有关。