When external effects are important, markets will be inefficient, and economists have considered several broad classes of economic instruments to correct these inefficiencies. However, the standard economic analysis has tended to neglect important distinctions and interactions between the...

How rich would resource-abundant countries be if they had actually followed the Hartwick Rule (invest resource rents in other assets) over the past 30 years? The authors use time series data on investments and rents on exhaustible resource extraction for 70 countries to answer this question. The...

The World Bank has been publishing estimates of adjusted net or "genuine" saving since 1999. This measure of saving treats depletion of natural resources as a type of economic depreciation. Hamilton uses recent theoretical results relating growth in saving to growth in future consumption to...

Questions about the ultimate size of mineral and energy resource endowments and the degree of fiscal prudence which should be exercised by countries engaged in resource extraction have become central for many developing countries during the recent resource boom. To explore these questions, this...