The paper proves the existence of equilibrium in nonrenewable resource markets when extraction costs are non-convex and resource storage is possible.Inventories atten the consumption path and eliminate price jumps at the end of the extraction period. Market equilibrium becomes then...

The Green Paradox states that, in the absence of a tax on CO2 emissions, subsidizing a renewable backstop such as solar or wind energy brings forward the date at which fossil fuels become exhausted and consequently global warming is aggravated. We shed light on this issue by solving a model of...

Optimal climate policy is studied in a Ramsey growth model. A developing economy weighs global warming less, hence is more likely to exhaust fossil fuel and exacerbate global warming. The optimal carbon tax is higher for a developed economy. We analyze the optimal time of transition from fossil...

Optimal climate policy is studied. Coal, the abundant resource, contributes more CO2 per unit of energy than the exhaustible resource, oil. We characterize the optimal sequencing oil and coal and departures from the Herfindahl rule. "Preference reversal" can take place. If coal is very dirty...

Natural resource abundance is a blessing for some countries, but a curse for othes. We show that differences across countries in the degree of fiscal decentralisation can contribute to this divergent outcome. First, the paper presents a unified theory that combines political and market...

This paper studies how monetary policy should optimally respond to an oil discovery.Oil discoveries provide news that the natural level of output will increase in the future. Anticipated increases in natural output lower the natural real interest rate. Optimal monetary policy must accommodate...

Surprisingly little is known about the impact of resource booms on income inequality in resource rich countries (Ross, 2007). This paper develops a simple theory, in the context of a two sector growth model in which learning-by-doing drives growth, to explain the time path of inequaility...

This paper provides an analytic review of the upstream aspects of the exploitation of natural resources: the assignment of ownership rights, taxation, the discovery process, extraction, renewability, and clean-up. It sets these issues within the principal-agent framework. It proposes that the...

Whereas empirical evidence on the effect of higher commodity prices onthe long-run growth of commodity exporters is ambiguous, time series analyses using vector autoregressive (VAR) models have found that commodity booms raise income in the short run. In this paper we adopt panel error...

We analyze a power struggle about the control of natural resources where competing factions in society have a private stock of financial assets and a common stock of natural resources with inadequately defined private property rights. We solve a dynamic common-pool problem and obtain political...