The literature on taxation of rents from nonrenewable resources uses different theoretical assumptions and methods and a variety of empirical observations to arrive at widely diverging conclusions. Many studies use models and methods which disregard uncertainty, investigating distortionary...

Since 1980, the aggregate income of oil-exporting countries relative to that of oil- poor countries has been remarkably constant despite structural gaps in productivity growth rates. This stylized fact is analyzed in a two-country model where resource- poor (Home) and resource-rich (Foreign)...

Natural-resource taxation and investment exhibit cycles in a vast number of countries, driving political turmoil and power shifts. Using a rational-expectations model, we show cycles result from governments' inability to commit to future taxes and firms' inability to credibly exit a country...

We study the incentives of selfish governments to tax tradable primary inputs un- der 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)...

The literature on taxation of rents from nonrenewable resources uses different theoretical assumptions and methods and a variety of empirical observations to arrive at widely diverging conclusions. Many studies use models and methods which disregard uncertainty, investigating distortionary...

Since 1980, the aggregate income of oil-exporting countries relative to that of oil- poor countries has been remarkably constant despite structural gaps in productivity growth rates. This stylized fact is analyzed in a two-country model where resource- poor (Home) and resource-rich (Foreign)...