The term fiscal resource curse refers to countries' inability to raise taxes from a broad base in the presence of natural resources. We employ a novel instrumental variable strategy to estimate the causal effect of resource revenues on non-resource tax effort by exploiting the so-called 'China...

In the distant future, aliens come to Earth. They find a planet devoid of life. Looking closer, the aliens see that life on Earth was once abundant, but was wiped out by a mass extinction. Curiously, this event was driven not by geological disaster, but by one of the extinct species itself. In...

The management of revenues from exhaustible natural resources involves a number of challenges. In this paper, we argue that the standard policy advice to managers of resource revenues has been dominated by short-termism and the lack of a perspective on economic development and structural...

We examine the relationship between oil price fluctuations and economic activity in Azerbaijan using vector autoregressive models for the period 2002Q1-2018Q4. Our key results are as follows. First, quarterly GDP growth decreases after oil price innovations in both, the oil and gas sector and in...

Africa's interior-to-coast roads are well suited to export natural resources, but not to support regional trade. Are they the optimal response to geography and comparative advantage, or the result of suboptimal political distortions? We investigate the political determinants of road paving in...

The political resource curse is the idea that natural resources can lead to the deterioration of public policies through corruption and rent-seeking by those closest to political power. One prominent consequence is the emergence of conflict. This paper takes this theory to the data for the case...

Africa's interior-to-coast roads are well suited to export natural resources, but not to support regional trade. Are they the optimal response to geography and comparative advantage, or the result of suboptimal political distortions? We investigate the political determinants of road paving in...

This study investigates the impact of natural resources on wealth inequality as a first attempt on a panel of 45 developed and developing countries over the period 2000-2014. Using the Generalized Method of Moments, the results provide stong evidence that natural resources increase wealth...

This research paper investigates the impact of natural resources volatility on economic growth. The paper focused on three resource-rich economies, namely, UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Oman. Using data from 1970 to 2016 and employing the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) cointegration approach, we...

As it transitions to an oil-producing country, Uganda's investments in infrastructure and physical capital will increasingly depend on the ability of the construction sector to respond to surges in demand and transform investment effort into outcomes. Using administrative and survey data, this...

The exploitation of natural resources is a huge opportunity, but one that carries considerable risks. Relative prices in resource-exporting economies tend to push them towards economic structures dominated by the resource sector. This paper explores ways to achieve diversification in a...

This paper analyzes the role of networks in the spatial diffusion of local economic shocks in Africa. We show that road and ethnic connectivity are particularly important factors for diffusing economic spillovers over longer distances. We then determine the key players, i.e., which districts are...

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries are rich in natural resources and in most of them their extractive industries extract and export natural resources with little industrial processing. This study analyzes the direct and indirect impacts that the extractive industries in...

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries are rich in natural resources and in most of them their extractive industries extract and export natural resources with little industrial processing. This study analyzes the direct and indirect impacts that the extractive industries in...

In the distant future, aliens come to Earth. They find a planet devoid of life. Looking closer, the aliens see that life on Earth was once abundant, but was wiped out by a mass extinction. Curiously, this event was driven not by geological disaster, but by one of the extinct species itself. In...

The term fiscal resource curse refers to countries' inability to raise taxes from a broad base in the presence of natural resources. We employ a novel instrumental variable strategy to estimate the causal effect of resource revenues on non-resource tax effort by exploiting the so-called 'China...

The management of revenues from exhaustible natural resources involves a number of challenges. In this paper, we argue that the standard policy advice to managers of resource revenues has been dominated by short-termism and the lack of a perspective on economic development and structural...

States' fiscal capacity plays a pivotal role in developing economies, but it is less clear what its determinants are or what explains cross-country differences. We focus on the impact of natural resources. Standard arguments suggest that natural resources rents may reduce incentives to invest in...

This paper analyzes the role of networks in the spatial diffusion of local economic shocks in Africa. We show that road and ethnic connectivity are particularly important factors for diffusing economic spillovers over longer distances. We then determine the key players, i.e., which districts are...

The empirical evidence suggests that the resource rich countries tend to have poor economic perfor- mance and higher rent seeking. In this paper, we develop a general equilibrium model explaining why natural resources turn out to be a curse in an economy divided into two classes: elite and...

Zimbabwe has a wealth of natural resources and is rich in biodiversity. The national Government is trying to achieve private sector led economic growth and the challenge to pursue both economic development and sound environmental management at the same time appears clear. The objective of this...

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries are rich in natural resources and in most of them their extractive industries extract and export natural resources with little industrial processing. This study analyzes the direct and indirect impacts that the extractive industries in...

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries are rich in natural resources and in most of them their extractive industries extract and export natural resources with little industrial processing. This study analyzes the direct and indirect impacts that the extractive industries in...

We explore the effects of persistent income shocks on human capital using oil price fluctuations in a large sample of relevant African countries and employing micro data from multiple waves of the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS). Theoretically, such shocks enable human capital investment via...

Regional economic growth is closely related to the optimization of the use of natural and human resources. This study aims to analyze: (1) The use of natural and human resource potential works as a determinant of the economic growth of Bulukumba Regency; (2) The influence of natural resources,...

Natural resources are often related to conflicts. The Dal B'o & Dal B'o (2011) theory states that income shocks affect capital- and labor-intensive sectors differently. Using sub-national cells covering the African continent for 1997-2010, I find that conflicts react differently to positive...