The Oil Curse

Author: Michael L. Ross
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691159637
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 314

Book Description
Explaining—and solving—the oil curse in the developing world Countries that are rich in petroleum have less democracy, less economic stability, and more frequent civil wars than countries without oil. What explains this oil curse? And can it be fixed? In this groundbreaking analysis, Michael L. Ross looks at how developing nations are shaped by their mineral wealth—and how they can turn oil from a curse into a blessing. Ross traces the oil curse to the upheaval of the 1970s, when oil prices soared and governments across the developing world seized control of their countries' oil industries. Before nationalization, the oil-rich countries looked much like the rest of the world; today, they are 50 percent more likely to be ruled by autocrats—and twice as likely to descend into civil war—than countries without oil. The Oil Curse shows why oil wealth typically creates less economic growth than it should; why it produces jobs for men but not women; and why it creates more problems in poor states than in rich ones. It also warns that the global thirst for petroleum is causing companies to drill in increasingly poor nations, which could further spread the oil curse. This landmark book explains why good geology often leads to bad governance, and how this can be changed.

Oil to Cash

Author: Todd Moss
Publisher: CGD Books
ISBN: 1933286695
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 190

Book Description
Oil to Cash explores one option to help countries with new oil revenue avoid the so-called resource curse: just give the money directly to citizens. A universal, transparent, and regular cash transfer would not only provide a concrete benefit to regular people, but would also create powerful incentives for citizens to hold their government accountable. Oil to Cash details how and where this idea could work and how policymakers can learn from the experiences with cash transfers in places like Mexico, Mongolia, and Alaska.

Understanding and Avoiding the Oil Curse in Resource-rich Arab

Author: Ibrahim Elbadawi
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107141729
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 497

Book Description
A variety of perspectives from leading economists provides fresh insight into how Arab countries may best exploit their oil revenues.

Rethinking the Resource Curse

Author: Benjamin Smith
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108788033
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 156

Book Description
This Element documents the diversity and dissensus of scholarship on the political resource curse, diagnoses its sources, and directs scholarly attention towards what the authors believe will be more fruitful avenues of future research. In the scholarship to date, there is substantial regional heterogeneity and substantial evidence denying the existence of a political resource curse. This dissensus is located in theory, measure, and research design, especially regarding measurement error and endogenous selection. The work then turns to strategies for reconnecting research on resource politics to the broader literature on democratic development. Finally, the results of the authors' own research is presented, showing that a set of historically contingent events in the Middle East and North Africa are at the root of what has been mistaken for a global political resource curse.

The Institutions Curse

Author: Victor Menaldo
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107138604
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 417

Book Description
Debunks the view that natural resources lead to terrible outcomes by demonstrating that oil and minerals are actually a blessing.

Oil Is Not a Curse

Author: Pauline Jones Luong
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139491156
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages :

Book Description
This book makes two central claims: first, that mineral-rich states are cursed not by their wealth but, rather, by the ownership structure they choose to manage their mineral wealth and second, that weak institutions are not inevitable in mineral-rich states. Each represents a significant departure from the conventional resource curse literature, which has treated ownership structure as a constant across time and space and has presumed that mineral-rich countries are incapable of either building or sustaining strong institutions - particularly fiscal regimes. The experience of the five petroleum-rich Soviet successor states (Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) provides a clear challenge to both of these assumptions. Their respective developmental trajectories since independence demonstrate not only that ownership structure can vary even across countries that share the same institutional legacy but also that this variation helps to explain the divergence in their subsequent fiscal regimes.

Curse of the Black Gold

Author: Michael Watts
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 232

Book Description
Nigeria is the sixth largest producer of oil in the world and one of the major suppliers of oil to the US. Set against a backdrop of what has been called the scramble for African oil, this text documents the consequences of a half-century of oil exploitation and production in one of the world's foremost centres of biodiversity.

Beyond the Resource Curse

Author: Brenda Shaffer
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812206177
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 476

Book Description
When countries discover that they possess large deposits of oil and natural gas, the news is usually welcome. Yet, paradoxically, if they rely on their wealth of natural resources, they often set down a path of poor economic performance and governance challenges. Only a few resource-rich countries have managed to develop their economies fully and provide a better and sustainable standard of living for large segments of their populations. This phenomenon, known as the resource curse, is a core challenge for energy-exporting states. Beyond the Resource Curse focuses on this relationship between natural wealth and economic security, discussing the particular pitfalls and consistent perils facing oil- and gas-exporting states. The contributors to this volume look beyond the standard fields of research related to the resource curse. They also shed new light on the specific developmental problems of resource-rich exporting states around the globe, including Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Cambodia, East Timor, Iran, Norway, Russia, Trinidad and Tobago, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela. Policy makers and academics think of energy security solely in terms of the interests of energy importers. Beyond the Resource Curse shows that the constant volatility in energy markets creates energy security challenges for exporters as well.

Covering Oil

Author: Svetlana Tsalik
Publisher: Lifting the Resource Curse
ISBN:
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 160

Book Description
The Revenue Watch program and the Initiative for Policy Dialogue promote transparency and civic participation in natural resource policymaking. Journalists know how hard it is to report on government management of oil, gas, and other natural resource revenues. Governments and industry are seldom forthcoming. And reporters themselves usually lack the background in economics, engineering, geology, and corporate finance helpful to understanding the energy industry and the effects of resource wealth. This book attempts to redress the balance with practical information in easy to understand language. Chapters include Understanding the Resource Curse, A Primer on Oil, Oil Companies and the International Oil Market, the ABCs of Petroleum Contracts, and the Environmental, Social, and Human Rights Impacts of Oil Development. Tip sheets inform reporters about stories to pursue and questions to ask.

The “Resource Curse” in the Persian Gulf

Author: Mehran Kamrava
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000727092
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 196

Book Description
The "Resource Curse" in the Persian Gulf systematically address the little studied notion of a "resource curse" in relation to the Persian Gulf by examining the historical causes and genesis of the phenomenon and its consequences in a variety of areas, including human development, infrastructural growth, clientelism, state-building and institutional evolution, and societal and gender relations. The book explores how across the Arabian Peninsula, oil wealth began accruing to the state at a particular juncture in the state-building process, when traditional, largely informal patterns of shaikhly rule were relatively well established, but the formal institutional apparatuses of the state were not yet fully formed. The chapters show that oil wealth had a direct impact on subsequent developments in these two complementary areas. Contributors discuss how on one hand, the distribution of petrodollars enabled political elites to solidify existing patterns of rule through deepening clientelist practices and by establishing new, dependent clients; and how on the other, rent revenues gave state leaders the opportunity to establish and shape institutions in ways that solidified their political control. The "Resource Curse" in the Persian Gulf will be of great interest to scholars of Middle Eastern studies, focusing on a variety of subject areas, including human development, human resources, clientelism, infrastructural growth, institutional evolution, state-building, and societal and gender relations. This book was originally published as a special issue in the Journal of Arabian Studies.