There are large volumes of gas offshore Tanzania, which has raised hopes of a boom. But those hopes look set to be disappointed. A boom would depend on there being a sizeable flow of revenue to government from producing and exporting gas. This paper sets out the scale of the gas, and the array...

A significant natural resource discovery creates excited popular expectations of imminent wealth. But the size of a boom is usually overestimated and the delay in receiving revenues is underestimated. This paper takes stock of the sequencing, timing, and scale of the development of a natural...

Although finding "new frontiers", or "reserves", of natural resources to exploit has been the basis of much of global economic development for the past five hundred years, frontier-based development does not appear to be producing sustained, high rates of growth in today's poorer economies....

We present a simple model of internal and external balance that incorporates the key features of resource-rich developing countries (RRDCs). The main result is that "government take", which is the ratio of fiscal resource revenue to resource output, is a key determinant of the equilibrium real...

We present a simple model of internal and external balance that incorporates the key features of resource-rich developing countries (RRDCs). The main result is that “government take", which is the ratio of fiscal resource revenue to resource output, is a key determinant of the equilibrium real...

The management of revenues from exhaustible natural resources involves a number of challenges. In this paper, we argue that the standard policy advice to managers of resource revenues has been dominated by short-termism and the lack of a perspective on economic development and structural...

Commodity resources offer vast opportunities for development. In the long run, however, the performance of commodity-rich countries tends to fall short of expectations, as commodity rents induce macroeconomic volatility and undermine incentives to improve institutions. The paper looks at the...

Economics now recognize that, along with physical and human capital, environmental resources should be viewed as important economic assets, which can be called natural capital. Three recent debates have emerged over the role of natural capital in economic development. First, as many ecological...

This study explains the emergence of the Sicilian mafia in the XIX century as the product of the interaction between natural resource abundance and weak institutions. We advance the hypothesis that the ma fia emerged after the collapse of the Bourbon Kingdom in a context characterized by a...

The paper discusses how early economists, sometimes informed by Alexander Humboldt’s pioneer detailed report on a tropical country (Mexico), interpreted the connections between natural resources, institutions and growth. The apparent paradox of a negative relation between natural wealth and...