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Surprisingly little is known about the impact resource booms on income inequality in resource rich countries (Ross, 2007). This paper develops a simple theory, in the context of a two sector growth model in which learning-by-doing drives growth, to explain the time path of inequality following a resource boom. Under plausible conditions, we find that income inequality will fall in the short run immediately after a boom, and will then increase steadily over time as the economy grows, until the initial impact of the boom on inequality disappears. Using panel co-integration methodology for a sample of 90 countries between 1965 and 1999, we test the predictions of the model empirically. We find strong evidence in support of the theory. Resource booms, especially mineral booms, lower inequality in the year of the boom. This effect then gradually diminishes over time until inequality returns to its pre-boom level in the long run.

Do local populations benefit from resource booms? How strong are market linkages between the mining sector and the regional economy? This paper exploits exogenous variation in mine-level production volumes generated by the recent copper boom in Zambia to shed light on these questions. Using a novel dataset, I find robust evidence that an increase in local copper production improves living standards in the surroundings of the mines even for households not directy employed in the mining sector: a 10% increase in constituency-level copper output is associated with a 2% increase in real household expenditure; positive effects on housing conditions, consumer durable ownership and child health are of similar magnitude. The positive spill-overs extend to the rural hinterland of mining cities, neighboring constituencies, and constituencies to the copper transportation route. Additionally,I identify boom-induced changes in the demand for servics and agricultural products as key channels through which the urban and rural populations benefit from the mine expansions. Since the boom failed to generate fiscal revenues, these effects can be interpreted as the result of the mines' backward linkages. Taken together, these findings highlight the welfare potential of local procurement policies in resource rich developing countries.

Does the central bank practice of publishing interest rate projections (IRPs) improve how market participants map new information into future interest rates? Using high-frequent data on Forward Rate Agreements (FRAs) we compute market forecast errors; differences between expected future interest rates and ex post realizations. We assess their change in narrow windows around monetary policy announcements and macroeconomic releases in Norway and Sweden. Overall, communication of future policy plans do not improve markets' response to information, irrespective of whether or not IRPs are in place. A decomposition of market reactions into responses to the current monetary policy action ("target") and responses to signals about the future ("path"), reveals that only policy actions lead to improvements in market forecasts.

Traditional studies of the Dutch disease do not account for productivity spillovers between the booming resource sector and other domestic sectors. We put forward a simple theory model that allows for such spillovers. We then identify and quantify these spillovers using a Bayesian Dynamic Factor Model (BDFM). The model allows for resource movements and spending effects through a large panel of variables at the sectoral level, while also identifying disturbances to the commodity price, global demand and non-resource activity. Using Australia and Norway as representative cases studies, we find that a booming resource sector has substantial productivity spillovers on non-resource sectors, effects that have not been captured in previous analysis. That withstanding, there is also evidence of two-speed economies, with non-traded industries growing at a faster pace than traded. Furthermore, com- modity prices also stimulate the economy, but primarily if an increase is caused by higher global demand. Commodity price growth unrelated to global activity is less favourable, and for Australia, there is evidence of a Dutch disease effect with crowding out of the tradable sectors. As such, our results show the importance of distinguishing between windfall gains due to volume and price changes when analysing the Dutch disease hypothesis.

Given the geographic concentration of oil production in Canada, oil price shocks are primary drivers of regional variation in income. It is widely believed that global oil price fluctuations only matter for the economy of oil-rich regions in Canada but can effectively be ignored in other regions. Based on detailed Canadian city-level and province-level data, our analysis shows that this view is mistaken. Unexpected increases in oil prices stimulate the Canadian economy in general and raise housing demand and real house prices in all regions across Canada. We develop a theoretical model of how real oil price shocks spread across regions. The model differentiates between oil-producing and non-oil-producing regions and incorporates multiple sectors, trade between provinces, government redistribution and consumer spending on fuel. The model establishes that oil price shocks spread to housing markets in non-oil-producing regions as the government effectively redistributes oil revenue and as the volume of interprovincial trade increases. Our finding that oil price shocks affect housing demand not only in oil-rich but also in oil-poor regions will ease the concern that a common interest rate policy may not equally suit all regions. It also suggests that regulators of mortgage markets in oil-poor regions must consider the consequences of fluctuating oil prices on their regions. Finally, the positive effect we find of oil price shocks on household debt and bank lending has implications for monitoring the risks in credit markets., Étant donné la concentration géographique de la production pétrolière au Canada, les chocs des prix du pétrole comptent parmi les principales causes de disparités de revenu entre les régions. L’idée est répandue que les fluctuations des prix mondiaux du pétrole ne perturbent que les régions du Canada riches en pétrole et que les autres peuvent, de fait, ne pas s’en soucier. À partir de données canadiennes détaillées par ville et par province, notre analyse montre qu’il s’agit d’une perception erronée. Des hausses inattendues des prix du pétrole stimulent l’ensemble de l’économie canadienne et font augmenter la demande de logements et les prix réels des logements dans toutes les régions du pays. Nous avons élaboré un modèle théorique de la propagation des chocs des prix réels du pétrole d’une région à l’autre. Ce modèle, qui fait la distinction entre les régions productrices et non productrices, tient compte de nombreux secteurs, des échanges commerciaux entre les provinces, de la redistribution des revenus par l’État et des dépenses de consommation en carburant. Il permet d’établir que les chocs de prix du pétrole se propagent aux marchés du logement des régions non productrices puisque l’État redistribue, de fait, les revenus du pétrole et que les échanges commerciaux interprovinciaux augmentent. Notre principale conclusion — à savoir que les chocs pétroliers se répercutent sur la demande de logements non seulement dans les régions riches en pétrole, mais aussi dans celles qui en sont dépourvues — contribuera à atténuer les craintes entourant la capacité d’une politique de taux d’intérêt commune de convenir à toutes les régions. Il en découle également que les autorités de réglementation des marchés hypothécaires dans les régions non productrices de pétrole doivent s’intéresser aux conséquences des fluctuations des prix pétroliers pour leur région respective. Enfin, les effets positifs des chocs des prix pétroliers que nous avons relevés sur l’endettement des ménages et les prêts bancaires ont des implications pour la surveillance des risques sur les marchés du crédit.

International audience; Over the past decade, the rapid increase in shale gas and shale oil production in the United States has profoundly changed energy markets in North America, and has led to a significant decrease in American natural gas prices. The possible existence of large shale deposits in continental Europe, mainly in France, Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany, has fostered speculation on whether the U.S. shale revolution could be duplicated in Europe. However, a number of uncertainties, notably geological, technological, regulatory, and relating to public acceptance make this possibility unclear. We present a techno-economic model of shale gas production amenable to direct estimation on historical production data to analyze the main determinants of the profitability of shale wells and plays. We contribute an in-depth analysis of an extensive production dataset covering 40,000 wells and accounting for nearly 90% of shale gas production in the six main plays of the continental United States from 2004 to 2014. We combine this analysis with a discussion of the main differences between the American and European contexts to calibrate our model and conduct Monte-Carlo simulations. This enables us to estimate the distribution of breakeven prices for shale gas extraction in continental Europe. We find a median gross breakeven price before taxes and royalties of $10.1 per MMBtu. This would make extraction unprofitable in Europe in the current natural gas price environment, with < 47% of the well distribution reaching breakeven at the mean 2011–2016 price. Sensitivity analysis reveals that the breakeven price is most sensitive to initial production rate, drilling and completion costs, and decline rates. We also find that the economic outlook would be slightly better if the productivity of European shale gas plays was comparable to that of U.S. plays of similar depth, but not significantly so. We conclude that under assumptions calibrated on existing shale gas production data, it is unlikely that the U.S. shale revolution can be duplicated in continental Europe.

In this paper we develop the first model to incorporate the dynamic productivity consequences of both the spending effect and the resource movement effect of oil abundance. We show that doing so dramatically alters the conclusions drawn from earlier models of learning by doing (LBD) and the Dutch disease. In particular, the resource movement effect suggests that the growth effects of natural resources are likely to be positive, turning previous growth results in the literature relying on the spending effect on their head. We motivate the relevance of our approach by the example of a major oil producer, Norway, where it seems clear that the predictions based on existing theory do not apply. Although the effects of an increase in the price of oil may resemble results found in the earlier Dutch disease literature, the effects of increased oil activity do not. Therefore, models that only focus on windfall gains due to increased spending potential from higher oil prices, would conclude - incorrectly based on our analysis - that the resource sector cannot be an engine of growth.

Whether it is fair to characterize natural resource wealth as a curse is still debated. Most of the evidence derives from cross-country analyses, providing cases both for and against a potential resource curse. Scholars are increasingly turning to within-country evidence to deepen our understanding of the potential drivers, and outcomes, of resource wealth effects. Moving away from cross-country studies offers new perspectives on the resource curse debate and can help overcome concerns regarding endogeneity. Therefore, scholars are leveraging datasets that provide greater disaggregation of economic responses and exogenous identification of impacts. This article surveys the literature on these studies of local and regional effects of natural resource extraction. We discuss data availability and quality, recent advances in methodological tools, and the main findings of several research areas. These areas include the direct impact of natural resource production on local labor markets and welfare, the effects of government spending channels resulting from mining revenue, and regional spillovers. Finally, we take stock of the state of the literature and provide suggestions for future research.

A nonrenewable resource extraction model is embedded within a lake model of industry-specific employment, where flows to (from) employment from (to) unemployment depend on the attachment (separation) rate. The attachment and separation rates vary with resource extraction, and the results, driven by the rate of extraction and the remaining resource stock, indicate that changes in the stationary employment level can be positive, negative, or zero. There is a range where the separation rate is decreasing (increasing) and the attachment rate is increasing (decreasing), and the change in employment is determined by the combined effect of these changes. Using data on coal production and employment in the U.S. as a guide, simple calculations provide a range of years beyond 2013 when it is expected that peak employment will be reached in the Marcellus Shale, and the results suggest that employment gains will likely continue for at least a decade.

The dramatic increase in oil and gas production from shale formations has led to an intense interest in its impact on local area economies. Exploration, drilling and extraction are associated with direct increases in employment and income in the energy industry, but little is known about the impacts on other parts of local economies. Increased energy sector employment and income can have positive spillover effects through increased purchases of intermediate goods and induced local spending. Negative spillover effects can occur through rising local factor and goods prices and adverse effects on the local area quality of life. Therefore, this paper examines the net economic impacts of oil and gas production from shale formations for key shale oil and gas producing areas in Arkansas, North Dakota and Pennsylvania. The synthetic control method (Abadie and Gardeazabal, 2003; Abadie et al., 2010) is used to establish a baseline projection for the local economies in the absence of increased energy development, allowing for estimation of the net regional economic effects of increased shale oil and gas production.

(english) This article explores the importance of fertilizer profitability in explaining the relative, apparent low use of chemical fertilizers by farmers in Burkina Faso. Using large-scale plot data, we estimate maize yield response to nitrogen to be 19 kg/ha on average and to vary with soil characteristics. Profitability, which we measure through the calculation of a marginal value cost ratio, is estimated at 1.41 on those plots which received fertilizers, with significant variations across regions. For those plots on which fertilizers were not applied, we predict that fertilizers should have been profitable in most cases under the current level of subsidized fertilizer prices. These findings suggest that the low uptake of chemical fertilizers might have been driven by factors other than profitability, including insufficient supply of subsidized fertilizers to farmers in need. Our results also call for increasing the availability of credit to farmers in order to encourage adoption of chemical fertilizers. Finally, our results also show that not taking into account the endogeneity of nitrogen use in the yield equation may produce biased estimates of the maize yield response to nitrogen. _________________________________ (français) Cet article explore l’importance de la rentabilité de l’utilisation des engrais chimiques comme facteur explicatif de leur relative faible adoption par les agriculteurs au Burkina Faso. En utilisant des données détaillées au niveau parcelle, nous estimons la productivité marginale des engrais à 19kg/ha en moyenne. Cette dernière varie considérablement en fonction des caractéristiques des sols. La rentabilité des engrais, mesurée par le rapport valeur-coût, est estimée à 1.41 sur les parcelles qui ont reçu des engrais et varie d’une région à l’autre. Concernant les parcelles sur lesquelles l’engrais n’est pas utilisé, nous trouvons que l’utilisation d’engrais serait profitable sur une grande majorité de ces parcelles au prix actuel subventionné de l’engrais. Ces résultats suggèrent que des facteurs autres que la rentabilité sont potentiellement responsables de la faible adoption des engrais. Ces facteurs incluent notamment les difficultés d’accès aux engrais subventionnés par les agriculteurs. Notre analyse suggère également qu’une augmentation de l’accès au crédit par les agriculteurs permettrait de favoriser l’adoption des engrais chimiques. Enfin, nos résultats montrent également la nécessité de corriger du biais d’endogénéité de l’utilisation des engrais dans l’équation des rendements de maïs.

An intense discussion is taking place in International Political Economy on the influence of economic ideas on institutional change. Case studies so far have, however, mainly focused on the Western industrialised countries and research seems to be biased towards cases in which new ideas caused lasting institutional change. The present paper addresses these two shortcomings by analysing the case of the Russian Stabilisation Fund (SF). This case is an example both of the impact of global ideas on a non-Western emerging country and of a ‘near miss’ in the sense that imported neo-liberal ideas failed to assert themselves enduringly. Paradoxically, it can be shown how the neo-liberally based idea of the SF even contributed to the return to Soviet patterns of industrial policy. The main reason for this, we argue, is that the Fund’s implementation was not preceded by economic and political debates. Accordingly, the imported institution of the SF had to be filled with ideational content after its implementation.

This article analyses co-movements in a wide group of commodity prices during the time period 1992?2010. Our methodological approach is based on the correlation matrix and the networks inside. Through this approach we are able to summarize global interaction and interdependence, capturing the existing heterogeneity in the degrees of synchronization between commodity prices. Our results produce two main findings: (a) we do not observe a persistent increase in the degree of co-movement of the commodity prices in our time sample, however from mid-2008 to the end of 2009 co-movements almost doubled when compared with the average correlation; (b) we observe three groups of commodities which have exhibited similar price dynamics (metals, oil and grains, and oilseeds) and which have increased their degree of co-movement during the sampled period. Fil: Matesanz Gómez, David. Universidad de Oviedo. Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales. Departamento de Economía Aplicada; España Fil: Torgler, Benno. Queensland University of Technology; Australia Fil: Dabat, Germán. Universidad Nacional de Quilmes; Argentina Fil: Ortega, Guillermo José. Universidad Nacional de Quilmes. Departamento de Ciencia y Tecnología; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina

This paper investigates the empirical characteristics of business cycles and the extent of cyclical comovement in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, using nonhydrocarbon GDP (excluding crude oil and natural gas sectors) and constituents of aggregate demand during the period 1990~2010. Although hydrocarbons still account for an overwhelming share of export earnings and fiscal revenues in the GCC countries leading to a higher degree of business cycle synchronicity at an aggregate level, this is driven largely by external factors influencing the price of crude oil and natural gas. By applying the Christiano-Fitzgerald asymmetric band-pass filter and a mean corrected concordance index, the results show that low level of synchronization in nonhydrocarbon business cycles across the GCC economies and a decline in the degree of synchronicity in the 2000s if Kuwait is excluded from the sample. It is partly because of divergent fiscal policies. The GCC countries do not appear to efficiently coordinate policies, let alone forming an optimal currency area.

The recent developments bring US to a leading natural gas and oil producer position. The attempts in last 20 years to bring new horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing technologies together have developed a success in shale gas and oil production in US; the production volumes has reached to a position to redefine the market. Last estimations are bringing more information about the shale capacities of the major basins of the world. However, the estimates are based on a wide range of assumptions and consequently their results vary in a large scale. In any case, these developments have crucial economic, political and geopolitical consequences on the energy market, petroleum producer and consumer countries and regions. Despite the wide range of ambiguity of the estimated size of the resources, the estimations show US and North America has one of the biggest potential, already turning technology into the giant production numbers. Some of the estimations allege so big numbers can even mean to a new world order. The asymmetric nature of the potential, can also be said, increases some of the expected impacts too. In this study, basically, we want to supply an initial solid and economical evaluation to this ambiguity. We are trying to shape a frame for the new energy potential and to put it in a place in the current practice of the world. Secondly, in this context, we are underlying here some of the possible economic and geopolitical consequences each of which can constitute a subject of deeper study.

Energy revenues represent roughly 45 percent of Trinidad and Tobago's GDP and are highly volatile since it is correlated with the price of oil and gas. Hence, sharp changes in energy prices, whether temporary or sustained, can have important consequences for economic growth and overall macroeconomic performance. After the 2014 crash in oil prices, a key challenge that emerged for policymakers in hydrocarbon exporting countries is how to manage fiscal retrenchment in an environment of subdued growth. Using structural vector autoregression, this article examines three questions related to this challenge by focusing on Trinidad and Tobago: (1) what is the asymmetric effect of energy revenue shocks on macroeconomic performance, (2) what is the asymmetric effect of energy revenue shocks on government expenditure (disaggregated by categories), and (3) what is the effect of government expenditure shocks (disaggregated by categories) on economic growth. The results suggest that although positive energy revenue shock increases growth almost immediately, it is not sustained. A negative energy revenue shock is found to have a greater adverse effect on primary expenditure than a positive shock and this largely occurs through a reduction in capital expenditure. Transfers and subsidies, and goods and services are the most sensitive components of current expenditure to positive energy shocks. With respect to the effect of expenditure on growth, transfers and subsidies significantly reduce growth in the short run, whereas other categories of expenditure are found to have a largely positive effect on growth. From a policy perspective, three important implications are identified. The first is for a detailed assessment of the various components of primary expenditure with the objective of reducing and or reorienting expenditure, particularly the "unproductive" parts such as transfers and subsidies, towards growth-enhancing areas. The extent to which such adjustments adversely affect the household welfare should be part of policy considerations. The second is the need for clear fiscal rules, and for the authorities to balance more effectively the role of fiscal policy as a growth stimulus. Thirdly, the country's stabilization fund, which was designed to manage windfall energy revenues, should be revisited to make withdrawal and deposit rules more explicit and effective during periods of commodity booms.

We study tax competition when pollution matters. Most notably, we present a dynamic setting, where the supply of capital is endogenous. It is shown that tax competition may involve stricter environmental policy than the cooperative outcome. © 2012 The Author(s).

Oil is one of the strategic good so that price fluctuations and shocks of it have major effects on economic growth and recession in depended countries to revenues of it. In this study, it is tried that the effect of oil price shocks investigated in two types (short and long time) on Economic growth in Iran. Its Period is from 1974 to 2006. According it, oil price uncertainty is quantized by GARCH model and is determined the effects of oil price shocks on economic growth in Iran during a short and extended time by Vector Auto-regression Estimates (VAR), Vector Error Correction Estimates (VECM), Unrestricted Co-integration Rank Test (Trace) tests. The results of these estimations have shown that the effect of oil price shocks in short and prolonged course on economic growth in Iran had been negative.

Surprisingly little is known about the impact of natural resource booms on income inequality in resource rich countries (Ross, 2007). This paper develops a theory, in the context of a two sector growth model in which learning-by-doing drives growth, to explain the time path of inequality following a resource boom. Under the condition that the nontraded sector uses unskilled labor more intensively than the traded sector, we find that income inequality will fall in the short run immediately after a boom, and will then increase steadily over time as the economy grows, until the initial impact of the boom on inequality disappears. Using dynamic panel data estimation for 90 countries between 1965 and 1999, and exploiting variation in world commodity prices to identify resource booms, we find evidence in support of the theory, especially for oil and mineral booms. We also find that uncertainty about future commodity export prices significantly increases long-run inequality.

A windfall in a developing economy with capital scarcity and investment adjustment costs facing a temporary windfall should be used to give more consumption to poorer present generations and to speed up development by ramping up public investment and paying off debt taking due account of the increasing inefficiency as investment gets ramped up. The optimal strategy requires negative genuine saving; the permanent income requires zero genuine saving. The optimal real consumption increments are smaller once one allows for absorption constraints resulting from Dutch disease and sluggish adjustment of 'home-grown' public capital.

What are the effects of regional integration and other trade policy measures in regions such as Central Asia or the Great Lakes Region of Africa where countries are remote with poor access to the outside world and where foreign exchange earnings come largely from natural resource based exports? We show that if countries have unequal natural resource endowments, then the gains from nonpreferential trade liberalisation accrue largely to the more resource rich economies, while the opposite is true for regional integration. Regional integration is a powerful way to spread the benefits of resource wealth more widely, but may also be an obstacle to external trade liberalisation.

Currently, evidence on the ‘resource curse’ yields a conundrum. While there is much cross section evidence to support the curse hypothesis, time series analyses using vector autoregressive (VAR) models have found that commodity booms raise the growth of commodity exporters. This paper adopts panel cointegration methodology to explore longer term effects than permitted using VARs. We find strong evidence of a resource curse. Commodity booms have positive short-term effects on output, but adverse long-term effects. The long-term effects are confined to “high-rent”, non-agricultural commodities. We also find that the resource curse is avoided by countries with sufficiently good institutions. We test the channels of the resource curse proposed in the literature and find that it is explained by real exchange rate appreciation and public and private consumption. Our findings have important implications for non-agricultural commodity exporters with weak institutions, especially in light of the current unprecedented boom in global commodity prices.

Whereas empirical evidence on the effect of higher commodity prices on the long-run growth of commodity exporters is ambiguous, time series analyses using vector autoregressive (VAR) models have found that commodity booms raise income in the short run. In this paper we adopt panel error correction methodology to analyze global data for 1963 to 2008 to disentangle the short and long run effects of international commodity prices on output per capita. Our results show that commodity booms have unconditional positive short-term effects on output, but non-agricultural booms in countries with poor governance have adverse long-term effects which dominate the short-run gains. Our findings have important implications for non-agricultural commodity exporters with poor governance, especially in light of the recent wave of resource discoveries in low-income countries.

In a non-renewable resource market with imperfect competition, both the resource rent and the current market influence large resource owners' optimal supply. New information regarding future market conditions that affect the resource rent will consequently impact current supply. Bleaker demand prospects tend to accelerate resource extraction. We show, however, that it may slow down early extraction by producers with sufficiently large reserves and thus small resource rents. The reason is that the supply from such producers is driven more by current market considerations than concern about resource scarcity. As producers with relatively smaller reserves accelerate their supply in response to bleaker demand prospects, producers with sufficiently large reserves will reduce their current supply. The surge in shale gas production will reduce residual demand facing suppliers to the European gas market. We demonstrate the effects of this in a numerical model. Most gas producers accelerate their supply while Russia reduces its supply slightly and thus loses market shares even before the additional gas enters the market.

We examine the effects that revenue windfalls from international commodity price booms have on external debt in a panel of 93 countries during the period 1970-2007. Our main finding is that increases in the international prices of exported commodity goods lead to a significant reduction in the level of external debt in democracies, but to no significant reduction in the level of external debt in autocracies. To explain this result, we show that in autocracies commodity windfalls lead to a statistically significant and quantitatively large increase in government expenditures. In democracies on the other hand government expenditures did not increase significantly. We also document that following commodity windfalls the risk of default on external debt decreased in democracies, but increased significantly in autocracies.

The exploitation of coltan in Central Africa can be considered a case of conflict minerals due to its nature. Many international organizations and bodies, national governments and private sector organizations seek to address this conflict, in particular via transparency, certification and accountability along the material supply chain. This paper analyses the international trade dimension of coltan and gives evidence on the dimension of illicit trade of coltan. The authors start from the hypothesis that illicit trade of coltan sooner or later will enter the market and will be reflected in the statistics. The paper is structured in the following manner: first, a short section gives a profile of coltan production and markets; second, an overview of the mining situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and related actors. The third section addresses mechanisms, actors and measurement issues involved in the international trade of coltan. The final part draws lessons for certification and conflict analysis and offers some guidance for future research. The paper identifies two main possible gateways to trace illegal trade in coltan: the neighboring countries, especially Rwanda, and the importing countries for downstream production, in particular China. Our estimation is that the value of such illicit trade comes close to $27 million annually (2009), roughly one-fifth of the world market volume for tantalum production. With regard to any certification the paper concludes that this will become challenging for business and policy: (a) Central Africa currently is the largest supplier of coltan on the world market, many actors profit from the current situation and possess abilities to hide responsibility; (b) China will need to accept more responsibility, a first step would be the acceptance of the OECD guidelines on due diligence; (c) better regional governance in Central Africa comprises of resource taxation, a resource fund and fiscal coordination. An international task force may provide more robust data, however more research will also be needed.

Technological innovations have had profound effect on agricultural sector in the post-Green Revolution period in India. With the inception of Green Revolution, mechanisation process, especially the application of tractor in agriculture sector had intensified. However, in 2000s, the pattern of mechanization has diversified slightly from the intensive tractorisation to other implements like, irrigation, fertilizer, harvester, energy and others. Using a time series data on tractorisation and agriculture GDP for 43 years, co-integration regression method was employed to understand short run equilibrium between the variables. Further, the Error Correction Model (ECM) result showed that elasticities of mechanization were 10.4 percent and 0.52 percent for the long-run and the short-run respectively. It implies that a positive impact of mechanization on agriculture GDP was found both in the short run and long-run.

A partir de inicios del presente siglo, el espectacular y prolongado auge de precios de las commodities trajo aparejado un drástico cambio en la configuración macroeconómica regional. Ello tuvo su correlato en la cambiante naturaleza de los dilemas enfrentados por la política económica. Para la mayor parte de las economías sudamericanas la cuestión macroeconómica central, a diferencia de lo ocurrido durante el último cuarto del siglo pasado, dejó de ser cómo lidiar con la escasez de divisas para transformarse en la de cómo administrar la bonanza externa. No hay dudas de que los recursos naturales presentan características peculiares que los distinguen. Pero así como hay países que sufren su abundancia como "maldición", el hecho de que para otros represente una "bendición" pone de manifiesto que el problema no son esas peculiaridades sino la forma en que cada sociedad consigue organizar la explotación de esos recursos.

La experiencia del Perú con la deuda externa durante el boom de la era del guano es una de las más notables en el siglo XIX. A pesar de la continua inestabilidad política y de la pobre reputación en los mercados financieros, el precio de los bonos peruanos se incrementó después de 1849 y el país disfrutó de riesgo de crédito relativamente bajo hasta 1870. Este artículo analiza los incentivos que Perú y sus acreedores enfrentaron y explica cómo el rendimiento extraordinario de Perú se fundó en su compromiso creíble de honrar su deuda con los ingresos del guano.Palabras clave: deuda externa, Perú, siglo XIX, guano

A windfall of natural resource revenue (or foreign aid) faces government with choices of how to manage public debt, investment, and the distribution of funds for consumption, particularly if the windfall is both anticipated and temporary. We show that the permanent income hypothesis prescription of an ever-lasting increase in consumption financed by borrowing ahead of the windfall and then accumulating a Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) is not optimal for capital-scarce developing economies. Such countries should accumulate public and private capital to accelerate their development and, only if the windfall is large relative to initial foreign debt, is it optimal to build a SWF. The optimal time profile of consumption is biased towards the near future, as compared to the permanent income hypothesis. Outcomes depend on instruments available to government. We study cases where the government can make lump-sum transfers to consumers; where such transfers are impossible so optimal policy involves cutting distortionary taxation in order to raise investment and wages; and where Ricardian consumers can borrow against future revenues, in which case the policy response to possible over-consumption is a high level of investment in infrastructure.

Present study theoretically explores and empirically diagnoses the Phenomenon of Plenty - paradox of below-potential economic performance of nations generously endowed with natural resources, focusing on oil-rich CIS members: Russia, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan. Extending theoretical structure to proposed Four-Component Process it reports existence of direct de-servisation finding previously overlooked cause of oil paradox - downturn of non-tradable sector long-time lacking production forces. Application of elaborated 5-Sign Algorithm for Diagnosis of the Phenomenon of Plenty elicits its presence across evaluated nations.

Die nachgewiesenen konventionellen Erdgasreserven reichen aus, um die Erdgasproduktion des Jahres 2008 weitere 60 Jahre aufrechterhalten zu können. Die vermuteten Ressourcen sind deutlich größer. Neben den konventionellen können aber auch unkonventionelle Ressourcen (Shale Gas, Gas aus dichten Speichern, Kohleflözgas) genutzt werden. Aufgrund verbesserter Bohrtechniken und gestiegener Preise ist die Gewinnung von unkonventionellem Gas bereits heute wirtschaftlich möglich. Vorreiter sind dabei die USA. Auch in anderen Regionen (Asien, Europa) werden unkonventionelle Erdgasressourcen vermutet. Sollten diese wirtschaftlich nutzbar sein, könnte die Importabhängigkeit in Asien und in einigen Ländern Europas sinken. Erdgas könnte dadurch - auch wegen seiner Umweltvorteile - langfristig das Mineralöl als wichtigsten konventionellen Energieträger ablösen.

Organizations now have the opportunity to fulfill most of their information system requirements through software packages, rather than building bespoke solutions. The advantages of this approach, particularly the perceived cost and time savings, appear self-evident. However, there are disadvantages, which must be carefully understood and evaluated before selecting and purchasing a software package. The organization must also be aware that it is probably entering a long-term commercial relationship with a supplier. It may be costly and difficult to end such a relationship, as converting data from one product to another may be prohibitively expensive. Hence the risks of the software package approach must be identified and appropriate risk avoidance and mitigation actions developed.

This paper examines teleworking, a modern concept, more and more present in the work relationships in our society. We will review some introductive elements, the evolution, the current status of telewoking in Europe and US and the development of teleworking in Romania.

This paper addresses the efficient management of natural resource revenues in capital-scarce developing economies. It departs from usual prescriptions based on the permanent income hypothesis and argues that capital-scarce countries should prioritize domestic investment. Because revenue streams are highly volatile, governments should protect consumption from shocks by increasing it only cautiously. Volatility in domestic investment can be moderated by a buffer of international liquidity, but it is also important to structure investment processes to be able to cope efficiently with substantial fluctuations. To date, most of the resource-rich countries of Africa have not had investment rates commensurate with their rate of resource extraction.

The unprecedented development of information technologies in recent decades has revolutionized global trade, wholesale and retail, redefining, from a radical way of organizing and operating system business, requiring a new way to trade, to enter relationship and partnership with consumers connect. Thus, this paper presents the main developments in trade, from classic to electronic commerce trade, concluding that, in fact, widespread Internet and information technology contribute to the development of traditional trade.

This paper addresses the question of whether the Bolivian gas boom of the 1990s has bypassed large parts of the poor population, thereby leading to increasing inequalities in an already unequal society. Using a Computable General Equilibrium model that is sequentially linked to a microsimulation model, we examine the transmission channels through which the large resource inflows related to the gas boom, both initial foreign investment in the sector and the subsequent export earnings, as well as large public transfer programs affect the distribution of income. These transfers may well be interpreted as a means of redistributing resource rents. Our focus is on labour market impacts, in particular on shifts between formal and informal employment and changes in relative factor prices. Our simulation results suggest that the gas boom induces a combination of unequalising and equalising forces, which tend to offset each other. As net distributional change is limited, growth generated by the boom reduces poverty despite increasing informality.

We study the impact of a natural resource boom on structural change and real exchange rate dynamics, taking into account the indirect effect via relative sectoral productivity changes. Our contribution relative to the Dutch disease literature is threefold. First, the productivity specification is extended from simple learning by doing to include trade barriers and technology gap dynamics, consistent with the modern understanding of productivity growth. Second, we offer a dynamic general equilibrium model with imperfect substitution between domestic and foreign goods. Third, the model is applied to South Africa and analyzes the macroeconomic impact of the gold price increase in the 1970s. Political pressure for rapid domestic spending after a surge in resource rents tends to generate myopic government behavior with unsustainable high consumption spending. Such fiscal response to higher resource income is captured by the model specification. Numerical simulations show how the resource boom can help explain the structural change and real exchange rate path observed in South Africa. Due to productivity effects the initial real appreciation is followed by gradual depreciation of the real exchange rate.

Resource booms can affect student achievement through greater labor demand, where rising wages pull students or teachers out of schools, and through an expanded tax base, where increased school spending alters teacher quality or student productivity. Using shale depth variation across Texas school districts with annual oil and gas price variation, this study finds that resource development slightly decreased student achievement despite providing schools with more money. Vocational and economically disadvantaged students were pulled into the labor market, while teacher turnover and inexperience increased. Schools responded to the tax base expansion by spending more on capital projects but not on teachers.

Oil and gas development associated with shale resources has increased substantially in the United States, with important implications for local governments. These governments tend to experience increased revenue from a variety of sources, such as severance taxes distributed by the state government, local property taxes and sales taxes, direct payments from oil and gas companies, and in-kind contributions from those companies. Local governments also tend to face increased demand for services such as road repairs due to heavy truck traffic and from population growth associated with the oil and gas sector. This paper describes the major oil- and gas related revenues and service demands (i.e., costs) that county and municipal governments have experienced in Arkansas, Colorado, Louisiana, Montana, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wyoming. Based on extensive interviews with officials in the most heavily affected parts of these states, along with analysis of financial data, it appears that most county and municipal governments have experienced net financial benefits, though some in western North Dakota and eastern Montana appear to have experienced net negative fiscal impacts. Some municipalities in rural Colorado and Wyoming also struggled to manage fiscal impacts during recent oil and gas booms, though these challenges faded as drilling activity slowed.

The development of Asia exposed commodity-exporting economies to unprecedented changes in their terms of trade. Using a small open economy model we estimate changes in the long-run level and variance of Australia's terms of trade and study the quantitative implications of these changes. An innovation of our analysis is to account in estimation for structural changes in the terms of trade. We find that long-run commodity prices increased by 35% in mid-2003 and that the volatility of shocks to commodity prices doubled soon after. The increase in the level of commodity prices is much smaller than single-equation estimates suggest. This is because our inferences rely on many observables that in general equilibrium also respond to shifts in the long-run level of the terms of trade.

The U.S. shale boom has intensified interest in how the expanding oil and gas sector affects local economic performance. Research has produced mixed results and has not compared how energy shocks differ from equal-sized shocks elsewhere in the economy. What emerges is that the estimated impacts of energy development vary by region, empirical methodology, as well as the time horizon that is considered. This paper captures these dimensions to present a more complete picture of energy boomtowns. Utilizing U.S. county data, we estimate the effects of changes in oil and gas extraction employment on total employment growth as well as growth by sector. We compare this to the effects of equal-sized shocks in the rest of the economy to assess whether energy booms are inherently different. The analysis is performed separately for nonmetropolitan and metropolitan counties using instrumental variables. We difference over 1-, 3-, 6-, and 10-year time periods to account for county fixed effects and to assess responses across different time horizons. The results show that in nonmetro counties, energy sector multiplier effects on total county employment first increase up to 6-year horizons and then decline for 10-year horizons. In metro counties, 1-year differences analysis suggests crowding out though the multipliers are insignificant in longer horizons. We also observe positive spillovers to the nontraded goods sector, while spillovers are small or negative for traded goods. Yet, equal-sized shocks in the rest of the economy produce more jobs on average than oil and gas shocks, suggesting that policymakers should seek more diversified development.

Over the past decade, a technological breakthrough – hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” – has fueled a boom in oil and natural gas extraction by reaching shale reserves inaccessible through conventional technologies. We explore the educational response to fracking, taking advantage of the timing of its widespread introduction and the spatial variation in shale oil and gas reserves. We show that local labor demand shocks from fracking have been biased toward low-skilled labor and males, reducing the return to high school completion among men. We also show that fracking has increased high school dropout rates of male teens, both overall and relative to females. Our estimates imply that, absent fracking, the male-female gap in high school dropout rates among 17- to 18-year-olds would have narrowed by about 11% between 2000 and 2013 instead of remaining unchanged. Our estimates also imply an elasticity of high school completion with respect to the return to high school of 0.47, a figure below historical estimates. Explanations for our findings aside from fracking’s low-skill bias – changes in school inputs, population demographics, and resource prices – receive less empirical support.

Etudes & documents; Ce papier examine l’effet des augmentations de la rente pétrolière dans les pays voisins du Cameroun, sur la demande d’exportations de produits alimentaires en provenance du Cameroun. En utilisant le modèle de gravité de commerce sur données de panel, il ressort que les ressources pétrolières des pays frontaliers au Cameroun sont à l’origine de l’intensification des exportations camerounaises en produits alimentaires vers les pays voisins pétroliers. La sensibilité des exportations aux chocs de revenus pétroliers dans les pays partenaires commerciaux apparait significative, positive et robuste aux différentes spécifications économétriques appropriées aux données bilatérales de commerce. L’avantage comparatif du Cameroun dans la production et l’exportation de produits alimentaires dans la sous-région a été examiné, sur le plan qualitatif, par plusieurs travaux récents. Les analyses récentes concluent par exemple que le Cameroun devrait tirer profit de cette demande en produits vivriers et améliorer sa productivité agricole qui est en dessous de ses potentialités (BAD, 2009 ; OCDE, 2011). En renforçant ses capacités d’offre, la pression exercée sur les prix domestiques du fait de l’excédent de demande en provenance de la sous-région devrait graduellement s’atténuer tout en renforçant les gains directs liés de l’activité commerciale transfrontalière.

We investigate whether mining affects local corruption in Africa. Several cross-country analyses report that natural resources have adverse effects on political institutions by increasing corruption, whereas other country-level studies show no evidence of such “political resource curses.” These studies face well-known endogeneity and other methodological issues, and employing micro-level data would allow for drawing stronger inferences. Hence, we connect 92,762 Afrobarometer survey respondents to spatial data on 496 industrial mines. Using a difference-in-differences strategy, we find that mining increases bribe payments, and this result is robust to using alternative models. Mines are initially located in less corrupt areas, but mining areas turn more corrupt after mines open. When exploring mechanisms, we find that local economic activity relates differently to corruption in mining and non-mining areas, suggesting that mining income incentivizes and enables local officials already present to require more bribes. This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Knutsen, C. H., Kotsadam, A., Olsen, E. H. and Wig, T. (2017), Mining and Local Corruption in Africa. American Journal of Political Science, 61: 320–334., which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12268. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.

Resource prices, and petroleum prices in particular, are volatile and difficult to predict, so government revenue in resource-producing regions is also uncertain and volatile. Adjusting government expenditure in response to these revenue movements involves economic, social and political costs. Many jurisdictions have established rule-based revenue stabilization funds to address revenue volatility, but there is little evidence on whether these funds improve welfare or if some fund designs increase welfare more than others. Using Monte Carlo techniques, we provide a quantitative welfare comparison of several types of rule-based stabilization funds for a petroleum-producing jurisdiction. We find large potential gains from the use of a fund to stabilize revenue, but some fund types reduce welfare, particularly those that accumulate large stocks of assets or debt. A fund that performs well, and is generally robust to changes in the simulation parameters, has a fixed deposit rate out of resource revenue and a fixed withdrawal rate out of assets.

Etudes & documents; This paper investigates the mechanisms determining spatial interactions in deforestation, and its transmission channels, using data from Brazil. Our preliminary results confirm the hypothesis that deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is characterized by complementarity, meaning that deforestation in a particular municipality tends to increase deforestation in its neighbors. We further show that cattle density, tend to be the most important factors determining the nature of spatial interactions between neighboring areas.

This paper examines the effect of natural resource dependence on growth in a cross-country setting during 1970 to 2010, first accounting for the effect of resource export dependence on institutional development. We employ several political and governance indicators, numerous econometric techniques on two separate panels, including one post-cold war. Our findings suggest there is a resource curse adversely effecting growth via institutional deterioration in the longer term (1970-2010), but recently (1995-2012) there is a reversal of this adverse effect on some institutions. Moreover, certain institutions matter more for growth, including governance and constraints on the executive relative to democracy.

An important idea behind the Norwegian oil fund mechanism and the fiscal spending rule is to protect the non-oil economy from the adverse effects of excessive spending of resource revenues over the Government budget. A critical assumption in this respect is that public sector saving is not being offset by private sector dis-saving, which is at stake with the hypothesis of Ricardian equivalence. Based on a framework of co-integrating saving rates, this model provides an empirical test of the Ricardian equivalence hypothesis on Norwegian time series data. Although the model rejects the strong-form presence of Ricardian equivalence, results indicate that the Norwegian approach does not fully succeed in separating spending of resource revenues from the accrual of the same revenues.

Existing development literature has argued that natural-resource endowments ``curse'' economic prosperity by reducing expenditures on education. According to this theory, public and private agents lack sufficient foresight to make optimal economic decisions and become poor as a result. Using a panel of U.S. state-level data, this paper offers evidence to the contrary. Public spending on education in resource-rich states greatly exceeds that in resource-scarce ones, and private education services are imperfectly crowded out as a result. More generally, this paper highlights the importance of exploiting both spatial and temporal variation in resource wealth when studying resource-rich economies.