We discuss political economy mechanisms which can explain the resource curse,in which an increase in the size of resource rents causes a decrease in the economy’stotal value added. We identify a number of channels through which resource rentswill alter the incentives of a political leader....

We use a two-country model with a central bank maximizing union-wide welfareand two fiscal authorities minimizing comparable, but slightly differentcountry-wide losses. We analyze the rivalry between the three authorities inseven static games. Comparing a homogeneous with a heterogeneous...