IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jmacro/v55y2018icp332-352.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Leave the volatility fund alone: Principles for managing oil wealth

Author

Listed:
  • Wills, Samuel

Abstract

How should capital-scarce countries manage their volatile oil revenues? Existing literature is conflicted: recommending both to invest them at home, and save them in sovereign wealth funds abroad. I reconcile these views by combining a stochastic model of precautionary savings with a deterministic model of a capital-scarce resource exporter. I show that both developed and developing countries should build an offshore Volatility Fund, but refrain from depleting it when oil prices fall because it cannot be known when, or if, they will rise again. Instead, consumption should adjust and only the interest on the fund should be consumed. To do this I develop a parsimonious framework that nests a variety of existing results as special cases, which I present in four principles: for capital-abundant countries, i) smooth consumption using a Future Generations Fund, and ii) build a Volatility Fund quickly, then leave it alone; and for capital-scarce countries, iii) consume, invest and deleverage, and iv) invest part of the Volatility Fund domestically, then leave it alone.

Suggested Citation

  • Wills, Samuel, 2018. "Leave the volatility fund alone: Principles for managing oil wealth," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 332-352.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:jmacro:v:55:y:2018:i:c:p:332-352
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jmacro.2017.12.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0164070417302641
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jmacro.2017.12.002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Frederick van der Ploeg & Anthony J. Venables, 2011. "Harnessing Windfall Revenues: Optimal Policies for Resource‐Rich Developing Economies," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(551), pages 1-30, March.
    2. Rabah Arezki & Valerie A. Ramey & Liugang Sheng, 2017. "News Shocks in Open Economies: Evidence from Giant Oil Discoveries," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(1), pages 103-155.
    3. Araujo, Juliana D. & Li, Bin Grace & Poplawski-Ribeiro, Marcos & Zanna, Luis-Felipe, 2016. "Current account norms in natural resource rich and capital scarce economies," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 144-156.
    4. Kimball, Miles S, 1990. "Precautionary Saving in the Small and in the Large," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(1), pages 53-73, January.
    5. Schmitt-Grohe, Stephanie & Uribe, Martin, 2003. "Closing small open economy models," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 163-185, October.
    6. Chang,Fwu-Ranq, 2009. "Stochastic Optimization in Continuous Time," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521541947, November.
    7. van der Ploeg, Frederick, 2010. "Aggressive oil extraction and precautionary saving: Coping with volatility," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(5-6), pages 421-433, June.
    8. Frederick Ploeg, 2012. "Bottlenecks in ramping up public investment," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 19(4), pages 509-538, August.
    9. Era Dabla-Norris & Jim Brumby & Annette Kyobe & Zac Mills & Chris Papageorgiou, 2012. "Investing in public investment: an index of public investment efficiency," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 235-266, September.
    10. Alquist, Ron & Kilian, Lutz & Vigfusson, Robert J., 2013. "Forecasting the Price of Oil," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 427-507, Elsevier.
    11. van den Bremer, Ton & van der Ploeg, Frederick & Wills, Samuel, 2016. "The Elephant In The Ground: Managing Oil And Sovereign Wealth," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 113-131.
    12. Kimball, Miles S & Mankiw, N Gregory, 1989. "Precautionary Saving and the Timing of Taxes," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(4), pages 863-879, August.
    13. Milton Friedman, 1957. "The Implications of the Pure Theory of Consumer Behavior," NBER Chapters, in: A Theory of the Consumption Function, pages 7-19, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Ramey, Garey & Ramey, Valerie A, 1995. "Cross-Country Evidence on the Link between Volatility and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(5), pages 1138-1151, December.
    15. Samuel Wills, 2012. "Optimal Monetary Responses to Oil Discoveries," Discussion Papers 1408, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM), revised Apr 2014.
    16. Milton Friedman, 1957. "Introduction to "A Theory of the Consumption Function"," NBER Chapters, in: A Theory of the Consumption Function, pages 1-6, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Cherif, Reda & Hasanov, Fuad, 2013. "Oil Exporters’ Dilemma: How Much to Save and How Much to Invest," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 120-131.
    18. Zsolt Darvas, 2012. "Real effective exchange rates for 178 countries: A new database," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 1210, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    19. Pieschacón, Anamaría, 2012. "The value of fiscal discipline for oil-exporting countries," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(3), pages 250-268.
    20. Stephen P. Zeldes, 1989. "Optimal Consumption with Stochastic Income: Deviations from Certainty Equivalence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 104(2), pages 275-298.
    21. Mr. Rodrigo O. Valdes & Mr. Eduardo E Engel, 2000. "Optimal Fiscal Strategy for Oil Exporting Countries," IMF Working Papers 2000/118, International Monetary Fund.
    22. Ton S van den Bremer & Frederick van der Ploeg, 2013. "Managing and Harnessing Volatile Oil Windfalls," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 61(1), pages 130-167, April.
    23. Xavier Sala-i-Martin & Arvind Subramanian, 2013. "Addressing the Natural Resource Curse: An Illustration from Nigeria," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 22(4), pages 570-615, August.
    24. Frederick van der Ploeg, 2011. "Natural Resources: Curse or Blessing?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(2), pages 366-420, June.
    25. John Hartwick, 1977. "Intergenerational Equity and the Investment of Rents from Exhaustible Resources in a Two Sector Model," Working Paper 281, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    26. Huggett, Mark & Vidon, Edouard, 2002. "Precautionary wealth accumulation: a positive third derivative is not enough," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 76(3), pages 323-329, August.
    27. Frederick Van Der Ploeg & Steven Poelhekke, 2017. "The Impact of Natural Resources: Survey of Recent Quantitative Evidence," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(2), pages 205-216, February.
    28. Anthony J. Venables & Samuel E. Wills, 2016. "Resource Funds: Stabilising, Parking, and Inter-generational Transfer," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 25(suppl_2), pages 20-40.
    29. Philippe Aghion & Peter Howitt, 2009. "The Economics of Growth," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262012634, December.
    30. Larry G. Epstein & Stanley E. Zin, 2013. "Substitution, risk aversion and the temporal behavior of consumption and asset returns: A theoretical framework," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 12, pages 207-239, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    31. A. Sandmo, 1970. "The Effect of Uncertainty on Saving Decisions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 37(3), pages 353-360.
    32. Regnier, Eva, 2007. "Oil and energy price volatility," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 405-427, May.
    33. Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson & Thierry Verdier, 2004. "Alfred Marshall Lecture: Kleptocracy and Divide-and-Rule: A Model of Personal Rule," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 2(2-3), pages 162-192, 04/05.
    34. Jordi Galí, 2008. "Introduction to Monetary Policy, Inflation, and the Business Cycle: An Introduction to the New Keynesian Framework," Introductory Chapters, in: Monetary Policy, Inflation, and the Business Cycle: An Introduction to the New Keynesian Framework, Princeton University Press.
    35. Gylfason, Thorvaldur & Herbertsson, Tryggvi Thor & Zoega, Gylfi, 1999. "A Mixed Blessing," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 3(2), pages 204-225, June.
    36. Hartwick, John M, 1977. "Intergenerational Equity and the Investing of Rents from Exhaustible Resources," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(5), pages 972-974, December.
    37. van der Ploeg, Frederick & Venables, Anthony J., 2013. "Absorbing a windfall of foreign exchange: Dutch disease dynamics," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 229-243.
    38. James D. Hamilton, 2009. "Understanding Crude Oil Prices," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2), pages 179-206.
    39. Christiane Baumeister & Lutz Kilian, 2011. "Real-Time Forecasts of the Real Price of Oil," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(2), pages 326-336, September.
    40. Mark Huggett, 2004. "Precautionary Wealth Accumulation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 71(3), pages 769-781.
    41. Collier, Paul & Goderis, Benedikt, 2008. "Commodity Prices, Growth, and the Natural Resource Curse: Reconciling a Conundrum," MPRA Paper 17315, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    42. Vasco Cúrdia & Michael Woodford, 2010. "Credit Spreads and Monetary Policy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(s1), pages 3-35, September.
    43. Bems, Rudolfs & de Carvalho Filho, Irineu, 2011. "The current account and precautionary savings for exporters of exhaustible resources," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 48-64, May.
    44. Frederick van der Ploeg & Steven Poelhekke, 2009. "Volatility and the natural resource curse," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 61(4), pages 727-760, October.
    45. Chang-Tai Hsieh, 2003. "Do Consumers React to Anticipated Income Changes? Evidence from the Alaska Permanent Fund," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 397-405, March.
    46. Frederick van der Ploeg & Anthony J. Venables, 2012. "Natural Resource Wealth: The Challenge of Managing a Windfall," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 315-337, July.
    47. Stuart Landon & Constance Smith, 2015. "Rule-Based Resource Revenue Stabilization Funds: A Welfare Comparison," The Energy Journal, , vol. 36(2), pages 117-144, April.
    48. Hayne E. Leland, 1968. "Saving and Uncertainty: The Precautionary Demand for Saving," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 82(3), pages 465-473.
    49. Aghion, Philippe & Bacchetta, Philippe & Rancière, Romain & Rogoff, Kenneth, 2009. "Exchange rate volatility and productivity growth: The role of financial development," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(4), pages 494-513, May.
    50. Samuel Wills, 2013. "Optimal Monetary Responses to News of an Oil Discovery," OxCarre Working Papers 121, Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies, University of Oxford.
    51. Espinoza, Raphael & Fayad, Ghada & Prasad, Ananthakrishnan, 2013. "The Macroeconomics of the Arab States of the Gulf," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199683796.
    52. Blattman, Christopher & Hwang, Jason & Williamson, Jeffrey G., 2007. "Winners and losers in the commodity lottery: The impact of terms of trade growth and volatility in the Periphery 1870-1939," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 156-179, January.
    53. Milton Friedman, 1957. "A Theory of the Consumption Function," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number frie57-1, June.
    54. Larsen, E.Roed., 2005. "Are rich countries immune to the resource curse? Evidence from Norway's management of its oil riches," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 75-86, June.
    55. Agénor, Pierre-Richard, 2016. "Optimal fiscal management of commodity price shocks," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 183-196.
    56. Andrew Berg & Rafael Portillo & Shu-Chun S Yang & Luis-Felipe Zanna, 2013. "Public Investment in Resource-Abundant Developing Countries," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 61(1), pages 92-129, April.
    57. Merton, Robert C, 1969. "Lifetime Portfolio Selection under Uncertainty: The Continuous-Time Case," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 51(3), pages 247-257, August.
    58. Marcos Poplawski Ribeiro & Mauricio Villafuerte & Thomas Baunsgaard & Christine J. Richmond, 2012. "Fiscal Frameworks for Resource Rich Developing Countries," IMF Staff Discussion Notes 12/04, International Monetary Fund.
    59. Churm, Rohan & Radia, Amar & Leake, Jeremy & Srinivasan, Sylaja & Whisker, Rishard, 2012. "The Funding for Lending Scheme," Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin, Bank of England, vol. 52(4), pages 306-320.
    60. Paul Collier & Rick Van Der Ploeg & Michael Spence & Anthony J Venables, 2010. "Managing Resource Revenues in Developing Economies," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 57(1), pages 84-118, April.
    61. Gary A. Wagner & Erick M. Elder, 2005. "The Role of Budget Stabilization Funds in Smoothing Government Expenditures over the Business Cycle," Public Finance Review, , vol. 33(4), pages 439-465, July.
    62. Mr. Marcos Poplawski Ribeiro & Mr. Mauricio Villafuerte & Mr. Thomas Baunsgaard & Christine J. Richmond, 2012. "Fiscal Frameworks for Resource Rich Developing Countries," IMF Staff Discussion Notes 2012/004, International Monetary Fund.
    63. Sachs, Jeffrey D. & Warner, Andrew M., 2001. "The curse of natural resources," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(4-6), pages 827-838, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Anthony J. Venables & Samuel E. Wills, 2016. "Resource Funds: Stabilising, Parking, and Inter-generational Transfer," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 25(suppl_2), pages 20-40.
    2. Thomas McGregor, 2017. "Pricing sovereign debt in resource rich economies," OxCarre Working Papers 194, Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies, University of Oxford.
    3. Frederick van der Ploeg & Anthony J. Venables, 2017. "Extractive revenues and government spending: Short- versus long-term considerations," WIDER Working Paper Series 045, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    4. Frederick van der Ploeg & Anthony J. Venables, 2017. "Extractive revenues and government spending: Short- versus long-term considerations," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2017-45, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    5. Obadia Kyetuza Bishoge & Benatus Norbert Mvile, 2020. "The “resource curse” from the oil and natural gas sector: how can Tanzania avoid it in reality?," Mineral Economics, Springer;Raw Materials Group (RMG);Luleå University of Technology, vol. 33(3), pages 389-404, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Samuel Wills, 2015. "Seven Principles for Managing Resource Wealth," Economics Series Working Papers OxCarre Research Paper 15, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    2. Ton S van den Bremer & Frederick van der Ploeg, 2013. "Managing and Harnessing Volatile Oil Windfalls," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 61(1), pages 130-167, April.
    3. Araujo, Juliana D. & Li, Bin Grace & Poplawski-Ribeiro, Marcos & Zanna, Luis-Felipe, 2016. "Current account norms in natural resource rich and capital scarce economies," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 144-156.
    4. Stuart Landon & Constance Smith, 2015. "Rule-Based Resource Revenue Stabilization Funds: A Welfare Comparison," The Energy Journal, , vol. 36(2), pages 117-144, April.
    5. Melina, Giovanni & Yang, Shu-Chun S. & Zanna, Luis-Felipe, 2016. "Debt sustainability, public investment, and natural resources in developing countries: The DIGNAR model," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 52(PB), pages 630-649.
    6. van der Ploeg, Frederick, 2019. "Macro policy responses to natural resource windfalls and the crash in commodity prices," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 263-282.
    7. Mahadeva Lavan, 2014. "Why does natural resource abundance not always lead to better outcomes? Limited financial development versus political impatience," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 14(1), pages 341-377, January.
    8. Frederick van der Ploeg, 2011. "Natural Resources: Curse or Blessing?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(2), pages 366-420, June.
    9. Christine J. Richmond & Irene Yackovlev & Ms. Susan S. Yang, 2013. "Investing Volatile Oil Revenues in Capital-Scarce Economies: An Application to Angola," IMF Working Papers 2013/147, International Monetary Fund.
    10. Rick Van der Ploeg, 2016. "Macro Policy Responses To Natural Resource Windfalls," OxCarre Working Papers 178, Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies, University of Oxford.
    11. van den Bremer, Ton & van der Ploeg, Frederick & Wills, Samuel, 2016. "The Elephant In The Ground: Managing Oil And Sovereign Wealth," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 113-131.
    12. Rick Van der Ploeg & Ton van den Bremer, 2016. "Saving Alberta’s Resource Revenues:," OxCarre Working Papers 179, Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies, University of Oxford.
    13. van der Ploeg, Frederick & ,, 2016. "Saving Alberta’s Resource Revenues: Role of Intergenerational and Liquidity Funds," CEPR Discussion Papers 11522, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. King Yoong Lim & Shuonan Zhang, 2023. "Optimal fiscal management in an economy with resource revenue‐financed government‐linked companies," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(2), pages 2202-2225, April.
    15. van den Bremer, Ton S. & van der Ploeg, Frederick, 2016. "Saving Alberta's resource revenues: Role of intergenerational and liquidity funds," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 132-146.
    16. Christine Richmond & Irene Yackovlev & Shu-Chun S. Yang, 2015. "Investing Volatile Resource Revenues in Capital-Scarce Economies," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(1), pages 193-221, February.
    17. Gvozdeva, Margarita (Гвоздева, Маргарита) & Kazakova, M.V. (Казакова, М.В.) & Kiblitskaya, T.R. (Киблицкая, Т.Р.) & Lyubimov, I.L. (Любимов, И.Л.) & Nesterova, K.V. (Нестерова, К.В.), 2016. "Various Aspects of Natural Resource Wealth Effect on Economic Growth [Различные Аспекты Влияния Богатства Природными Ресурсами На Экономический Рост]," Working Papers 2045, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.
    18. Carpantier, J.-F. & Vermeulen, W.N., 2018. "Emergence of sovereign wealth funds," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 11(C), pages 1-21.
    19. Sayadi, Mohammad & Khoshkalam Khosroshahi, Musa, 2020. "Assessing Alternative Investment Policies in a Resource-Rich Capital-Scarce Country: Results from a DSGE analysis for Iran," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    20. Troug, Haytem, 2020. "The heterogeneity among commodity-rich economies: Beyond the prices of commodities," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Natural resources; Oil; Volatility; Sovereign wealth fund; Precautionary saving; Capital scarcity; Anticipation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • F43 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Economic Growth of Open Economies
    • H63 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Debt; Debt Management; Sovereign Debt
    • O13 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Environment; Other Primary Products
    • Q32 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation - - - Exhaustible Resources and Economic Development
    • Q33 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation - - - Resource Booms (Dutch Disease)

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jmacro:v:55:y:2018:i:c:p:332-352. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622617 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.