This paper analyses the connection between resource wealth, governance and economic performance in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Since independence, both countries have remained heavily resource-dependent and they have had political stability, but despite some similarities, their economic...

We study the incentives of selfish governments to tax tradable primary inputs under asymmetric trade. Using an empirically-consistent model of endogenous growth, we obtain explicit links between persistent gaps in productivity growth and the observed tendency of resource-exporting (importing)...

"For many countries, primarily in the Global South, extractivism - the exploiting and exporting of natural resources - is big business. For those exporting countries, natural resource rents create hope and promise for development which can be a seductive force. This book explores the depth of...