Confronting the Curse

Confronting the Curse
Author :
Publisher : Peterson Institute for International Economics
Total Pages : 221
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780881326765
ISBN-13 : 0881326763
Rating : 4/5 (65 Downloads)

Synopsis Confronting the Curse by : Cullen S. Hendrix

The political economy of natural resource wealth poses two interrelated challenges for American foreign policy, both involving governance issues in countries that are abundantly endowed with natural resources. The potentially negative impact of natural resources on development is captured in the phrase "the resource curse". The implications are the greatest for the commodity producers themselves, ranging from complications for macroeconomic management to political authoritarianism and, in the extreme, the precipitation of violent civil conflict. For US policy, the resource curse presents challenges with respect to coping with state failure and associated transborder phenomena. The issues extend to broader geopolitics. Resource abundance confers financial and political power on producers. China's emergence as a major importer and investor in extraction, willing to accommodate authoritarian producers, exacerbates the challenge, potentially undercutting international efforts to encourage greater transparency and improved management of natural resource wealth. This issue is of particular importance for US policy toward Africa

Beyond the Resource Curse

Beyond the Resource Curse
Author :
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages : 476
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780812206173
ISBN-13 : 0812206177
Rating : 4/5 (73 Downloads)

Synopsis Beyond the Resource Curse by : Brenda Shaffer

When countries discover that they possess large deposits of oil and natural gas, the news is usually welcome. Yet, paradoxically, if they rely on their wealth of natural resources, they often set down a path of poor economic performance and governance challenges. Only a few resource-rich countries have managed to develop their economies fully and provide a better and sustainable standard of living for large segments of their populations. This phenomenon, known as the resource curse, is a core challenge for energy-exporting states. Beyond the Resource Curse focuses on this relationship between natural wealth and economic security, discussing the particular pitfalls and consistent perils facing oil- and gas-exporting states. The contributors to this volume look beyond the standard fields of research related to the resource curse. They also shed new light on the specific developmental problems of resource-rich exporting states around the globe, including Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Cambodia, East Timor, Iran, Norway, Russia, Trinidad and Tobago, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela. Policy makers and academics think of energy security solely in terms of the interests of energy importers. Beyond the Resource Curse shows that the constant volatility in energy markets creates energy security challenges for exporters as well.

Oil to Cash

Oil to Cash
Author :
Publisher : CGD Books
Total Pages : 190
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781933286693
ISBN-13 : 1933286695
Rating : 4/5 (93 Downloads)

Synopsis Oil to Cash by : Todd Moss

Oil to Cash explores one option to help countries with new oil revenue avoid the so-called resource curse: just give the money directly to citizens. A universal, transparent, and regular cash transfer would not only provide a concrete benefit to regular people, but would also create powerful incentives for citizens to hold their government accountable. Oil to Cash details how and where this idea could work and how policymakers can learn from the experiences with cash transfers in places like Mexico, Mongolia, and Alaska.

The Oil Curse

The Oil Curse
Author :
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Total Pages : 314
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780691159638
ISBN-13 : 0691159637
Rating : 4/5 (38 Downloads)

Synopsis The Oil Curse by : Michael L. Ross

Explaining—and solving—the oil curse in the developing world Countries that are rich in petroleum have less democracy, less economic stability, and more frequent civil wars than countries without oil. What explains this oil curse? And can it be fixed? In this groundbreaking analysis, Michael L. Ross looks at how developing nations are shaped by their mineral wealth—and how they can turn oil from a curse into a blessing. Ross traces the oil curse to the upheaval of the 1970s, when oil prices soared and governments across the developing world seized control of their countries' oil industries. Before nationalization, the oil-rich countries looked much like the rest of the world; today, they are 50 percent more likely to be ruled by autocrats—and twice as likely to descend into civil war—than countries without oil. The Oil Curse shows why oil wealth typically creates less economic growth than it should; why it produces jobs for men but not women; and why it creates more problems in poor states than in rich ones. It also warns that the global thirst for petroleum is causing companies to drill in increasingly poor nations, which could further spread the oil curse. This landmark book explains why good geology often leads to bad governance, and how this can be changed.

China's Contained Resource Curse

China's Contained Resource Curse
Author :
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Total Pages : 237
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781316511268
ISBN-13 : 131651126X
Rating : 4/5 (68 Downloads)

Synopsis China's Contained Resource Curse by : Jing Vivian Zhan

A novel empirical study of the 'resource curse' and the state response in contemporary China.

Weak Links

Weak Links
Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Total Pages : 354
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780199751518
ISBN-13 : 019975151X
Rating : 4/5 (18 Downloads)

Synopsis Weak Links by : Stewart Patrick

Conventional wisdom among policymakers in both the US and Europe holds that weak and failing states are the source of the world's most pressing security threats today. However, as this book shows, our assumptions about the threats posed by failed and failing states are based on false premises.

The Oxford Handbook of Sovereign Wealth Funds

The Oxford Handbook of Sovereign Wealth Funds
Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Total Pages : 737
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780198754800
ISBN-13 : 0198754809
Rating : 4/5 (00 Downloads)

Synopsis The Oxford Handbook of Sovereign Wealth Funds by : Douglas Cumming

Sovereign Wealth Funds have become increasingly powerful and influential investors. Their increasing role, and unusual character as both political and market actors, raise a number of issues with regard to finance, politics, regulation, and international business. This handbook draws together the growing but fragmented research on SWFs.

Resource Abundance and Economic Development

Resource Abundance and Economic Development
Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Total Pages : 357
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780199246885
ISBN-13 : 0199246882
Rating : 4/5 (85 Downloads)

Synopsis Resource Abundance and Economic Development by : R. M. Auty

Since the 1960s the per capita incomes of the resource-poor countries have grown significantly faster than those of the resource-abundant countries. In fact, in recent years economic growth has been inversely proportional to the share of natural resource rents in GDP, so that the small mineral-driven economies have performed least well and the oil-driven economies worst of all. Yet the mineral-driven resource-rich economies have high growth potential because the mineral exportsboost their capacity to invest and to import."Resource Abundance and Economic Development" explains the disappointing performance of resource-abundant countries by extending the growth accounting framework to include natural and social capital. The resulting synthesis identifies two contrasting development trajectories: the competitive industrialization of the resource-poor countries and the staple trap of many resource-abundant countries. The resource-poor countries are less prone to policy failure than the resource-abundant countriesbecause social pressures force the political state to align its interests with the majority poor and follow relatively prudent policies. Resource-abundant countries are more likely to engender political states in which vested interests vie to capture resource surpluses (rents) at the expense of policycoherence. A longer dependence on primary product exports also delays industrialization, heightens income inequality, and retards skill accumulation. Fears of 'Dutch disease' encourage efforts to force industrialization through trade policy to protect infant industry. The resulting slow-maturing manufacturing sector demands transfers from the primary sector that outstrip the natural resource rents and sap the competitiveness of the economy.The chapters in this collection draw upon historical analysis and models to show that a growth collapse is not the inevitable outcome of resource abundance and that policy counts. Malaysia, a rare example of successful resource-abundant development, is contrasted with Ghana, Bolivia, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, and Argentina, which all experienced a growth collapse. The book also explores policies for reviving collapsed economies with reference to Costa Rica, South Africa, Russia and Central Asia. Itdemonstrates the importance of initial conditions to successful economic reform.

Facing the Resource Curse

Facing the Resource Curse
Author :
Publisher :
Total Pages : 262
Release :
ISBN-10 : STANFORD:36105212634195
ISBN-13 :
Rating : 4/5 (95 Downloads)

Synopsis Facing the Resource Curse by : Arne Disch

Sustaining Development in Mineral Economies

Sustaining Development in Mineral Economies
Author :
Publisher : Routledge
Total Pages : 306
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781134867899
ISBN-13 : 1134867891
Rating : 4/5 (99 Downloads)

Synopsis Sustaining Development in Mineral Economies by : Richard Auty

It is widely believed that natural mineral resources are desirable. However there is growing evidence that this may not always be the case. Indeed, it seems that natural assets can distort the economy to such a degree that the benefit actually becomes a curse. In Sustaining Development in Mineral Economies, Richard Auty highlights these drawbacks and the devastating effect they can have on developing economies. With reference to six ore-exporters (viz. Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Jamaica, Zambia and Papua New Guinea) he outlines how things can go badly wrong. He particularly stresses the need to avoid `Dutch Disease' whereby competitiveness is drained out of the agriculture and manufacturing sectors so that in the long term growth falters.