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Publications (38)
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Resource rents, fiscal capacity and political institutions in developing economies
While it is recognised that the ability of states to raise revenues (i.e., fiscal capacity) is important for the provision of key public goods in less developed economies, it is less clear what its determinants are and what explains cross-country differences. We focus on the impact of natural...
The post-COVID-19 economic recovery and Russia’s war with Ukraine have caused some natural resource prices to reach new highs. Although forecasting the price of internationally-traded commodities is notoriously difficult, recent estimates suggest that prices will remain high through 2024. The high...
Working Paper
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– When ‘good’ is not enough
Developing countries that experience commodity booms struggle to mobilize sustainable tax revenues. Emerging literature on the subject notwithstanding, there is limited exploration of the specific types of institutions critical for improving fiscal capacity in resource-rich contexts. This paper...
Working Paper
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– A development perspective
This paper reviews the recent literature on the developmental effects of resource abundance, assessing likely effects and channels with respect to income inequality, poverty, education, and health. To date, this area has received less analysis although it is relevant to the Sustainable Development...
Working Paper
pdf
– Evolving trends during the transition to a low carbon future
The first objective of this paper is to update earlier assessments of mineral dependence in lower-income countries. In 2018, the mining of metals and coal continued to be an important contributor to the economies of several low- and middle-income countries. As in our previous calculations of the...
Working Paper
pdf
– What’s China got to do with it?
The term fiscal resource curse refers to countries’ inability to raise taxes from a broad base in the presence of natural resources. We employ a novel instrumental variable strategy to estimate the causal effect of resource revenues on non-resource tax effort by exploiting the so-called ‘China shock...
Working Paper
pdf
– Country priorities, fuel types, and energy decisions
This paper provides an overview of the energy transition in Asia. It sets out the underlying drivers and how these set energy transition priorities in China, India, and South East Asia. It particularly describes the role of (liquefied) natural gas in the growing energy demand and changing energy mix...
Working Paper
pdf
– A data-driven approach
Robust forecasting of mining sector revenues is key to effective budgeting (and broader fiscal management) in many resource-rich countries.However, this is challenging in practice, given commodity market volatility, the extended lags (and often opaque processes) between resource discoveries and...
Working Paper
pdf
– Resource rents, fiscal capacity, and political institutions in developing economies
States’ fiscal capacity plays a pivotal role in developing economies, but it is less clear what its determinants are or what explains cross-country differences. We focus on the impact of natural resources. Standard arguments suggest that natural resources rents may reduce incentives to invest in...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
This paper evaluates the existence of a resource curse on political regimes using the Synthetic Control Method. Focusing on 12 countries, we compare their democracy level with the weighted democracy level of countries that have not experienced oil shocks and have similar pre‐event characteristics...
Displaying 16 of 38 results