There are few areas of economic policy-making in which the returns to good decisions are so high-and the punishment of bad decisions so cruel-as in the management of natural resource wealth. Rich endowments of oil, gas and minerals have set some countries on courses of sustained and robust...

This Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper for Nigeria highlights the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS). NEEDS gives special support to agriculture, industry, small and medium-scale enterprises, and oil and gas. Under the plan, the government will seek long-term capital...

By definition, fiscal dominance impedes the effective implementation of any monetary strategy aimed at controlling inflation. Economies that exhibit oil dominance-a situation in which oil exports largely affect the main macroeconomic indicators-may also exhibit fiscal dominance. However, in this...

A short-run macroeconomic model is estimated for Venezuela, in order to examine the hypothesis that the availability of oil resources may entail a confidence effect—on perceived future incomes—that influences the expenditure and portfolio behavior of economic agents. Such confidence effect...

This Technical Assistance (TA) Report on the Philippines discusses the fiscal regime for the mining sector. The Philippines has long been a producer of minerals, but the mining and petroleum sectors account for only a small share of the economy, exports, and government revenue. The petroleum...

This paper examines the fiscal responses of oil-producing countries (OPCs) to the oil boom through 2005 and the role of special fiscal institutions (SFIs)-oil funds, fiscal rules and fiscal responsibility legislation (FRL), and budgetary oil prices-in fiscal management in OPCs, and draws some...

After several years of robust growth, real GDP growth slowed to 2.9 percent in 2008 owing to a decline in mining output. The nonmining primary deficit (NMPD) amounted to 28.6 percent of nonmining GDP in 2008/09, well above the 16.8 percent NMPD in 2007/08. Botswana continues to peg the pula to a...

This Joint Staff Advisory Note reviews the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) for Sierra Leone. The Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) provides an adequate framework for reducing poverty in Sierra Leone. The PRSP is the result of an extensive participatory process. The foundation of the PRSP...