This website uses cookies.

By clicking the "Accept" button or continuing to browse our site, you agree to first-party and session-only cookies being stored on your device to enhance site navigation and analyze site performance and traffic. For more information on our use of cookies, please see our Privacy Policy.

  1. Home
  2. Journals
  3. Journal of Economic Perspectives
  4. Winter 2016
  5. Using Natural Resources for Development: Why Has It Proven So Difficult?

Using Natural Resources for Development: Why Has It Proven So Difficult?

Download Full Text PDF
(Complimentary)

Abstract

Developing economies have found it hard to use natural resource wealth to improve their economic performance. Utilizing resource endowments is a multistage economic and political problem that requires private investment to discover and extract the resource, fiscal regimes to capture revenue, judicious spending and investment decisions, and policies to manage volatility and mitigate adverse impacts on the rest of the economy. Experience is mixed, with some successes (such as Botswana and Malaysia) and more failures. This paper reviews the challenges that are faced in successfully managing resource wealth, the evidence on country performance, and the reasons for disappointing results.

Citation

Venables, Anthony J. 2016. "Using Natural Resources for Development: Why Has It Proven So Difficult?" Journal of Economic Perspectives, 30 (1): 161-84. DOI: 10.1257/jep.30.1.161

Additional Materials

JEL Classification

  • Q32 Exhaustible Resources and Economic Development
  • Q33 Resource Booms
There are no comments for this article.
Login to Comment