IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/enejou/v38y2017i1p103-132.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Should Developing Countries Constrain Resource-Income Spending? A Quantitative Analysis of Oil Income in Uganda

Author

Listed:
  • John Hassler
  • Per Krusell
  • Abdulaziz B. Shifa
  • Daniel Spiro

Abstract

A large increase in government spending following resource discoveries often entails political risks, inefficient investments and increased volatility. Setting up a sovereign wealth fund with a clear spending constraint may decrease these risks. On the other hand, in a capital scarce developing economy with limited access to international borrowing, such a spending constraint may lower welfare by reducing domestic capital accumulation and hindering consumption increases for the currently poor. These two contradicting considerations pose a dilemma for policy makers in deciding whether to set up a sovereign wealth fund with a spending constraint. Using Uganda’s recent oil discovery as a case study, this paper presents a quantitative macroeconomic analysis and examines the potential loss of constraining spending through a sovereign wealth fund with a simple spending rule. We find that the loss is relatively low and unlikely to dominate the political risks associated with increased oil spending. Thus, such a spending constraint appears well warranted.

Suggested Citation

  • John Hassler & Per Krusell & Abdulaziz B. Shifa & Daniel Spiro, 2017. "Should Developing Countries Constrain Resource-Income Spending? A Quantitative Analysis of Oil Income in Uganda," The Energy Journal, , vol. 38(1), pages 103-132, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:enejou:v:38:y:2017:i:1:p:103-132
    DOI: 10.5547/01956574.38.1.jhas
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.5547/01956574.38.1.jhas
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.5547/01956574.38.1.jhas?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
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jonathan Isham & Daniel Kaufmann, 1999. "The Forgotten Rationale for Policy Reform: The Productivity of Investment Projects," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(1), pages 149-184.
    2. Vicente, Pedro C., 2010. "Does oil corrupt? Evidence from a natural experiment in West Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1), pages 28-38, 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. Fridtjof Bahlburg, 2023. "The Local Impact of Mining in Peruvian Districts: Evidence of a Subnational Resource Curse?," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 13(4), pages 264-286, July.
    2. Ragnar Torvik, 2018. "Should Developing Countries Establish Petroleum Funds?," The Energy Journal, , vol. 39(4), pages 85-102, July.
    3. Sugra Humbatova, 2023. "The Impact of Oil Prices on State Budget Income and Expenses: Case of Azerbaijan," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 13(1), pages 189-212, January.

    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. Olivier Blanchard & Michael Kremer, 1997. "Disorganization," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1091-1126.
    2. Blanco, Luisa & Grier, Robin, 2012. "Natural resource dependence and the accumulation of physical and human capital in Latin America," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 281-295.
    3. Mr. Yehenew Endegnanew & Dawit Tessema, 2019. "Public Investment in Bolivia: Prospects and Implications," IMF Working Papers 2019/151, International Monetary Fund.
    4. Boschini, Anne & Pettersson, Jan & Roine, Jesper, 2013. "The Resource Curse and its Potential Reversal," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 19-41.
    5. Dollar, David & Levin, Victoria, 2006. "The Increasing Selectivity of Foreign Aid, 1984-2003," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 34(12), pages 2034-2046, December.
    6. Sadik, Ali T. & Bolbol, Ali A., 2003. "Arab External Investments: Relation to National Wealth, Estimation, and Consequences," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(11), pages 1771-1792, November.
    7. Leticia Arroyo Abad & Nuno Palma, 2020. "The Fruits of El Dorado: The Global Impact of American Precious Metals," Working Papers 0179, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).
    8. Aramonte, Sirio & Jahan-Parvar, Mohammad R. & Shugarman, Justin K., 2019. "Institutions and return predictability in oil-exporting countries," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 14-26.
    9. Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas & Olivier Jeanne, 2006. "The Elusive Gains from International Financial Integration," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 73(3), pages 715-741.
    10. Guy Elaad & Alex Krumer & Jeffrey Kantor, 2018. "Corruption and Sensitive Soccer Games: Cross-Country Evidence," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 34(3), pages 364-394.
    11. Cappelen, Alexander W. & Fjeldstad, Odd-Helge & Mmari, Donald & Sjursen, Ingrid Hoem & Tungodden, Bertil, 2021. "Understanding the resource curse: A large-scale experiment on corruption in Tanzania," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 129-157.
    12. Günther G. Schulze & Bambang Suharnoko Sjahrir & Nikita Zakharov, 2016. "Corruption in Russia," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(1), pages 135-171.
    13. Hicks, Robert L. & Parks, Bradley C. & Tierney, Michael J., 2005. "Explaining the Allocation of Bilateral and Multilateral Environmental Aid to Developing Countries," 2005 Annual meeting, July 24-27, Providence, RI 19346, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    14. Temple, Jonathan R.W., 2010. "Aid and Conditionality," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4415-4523, Elsevier.
    15. Andrea Cori & Salvatore Monni, 2014. "The Resource Curse Hypothesis: Evidence from Ecuador," SEEDS Working Papers 2814, SEEDS, Sustainability Environmental Economics and Dynamics Studies, revised Oct 2014.
    16. Carmignani, Fabrizio, 2013. "Development outcomes, resource abundance, and the transmission through inequality," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 412-428.
    17. Remi Jedwab & Adam Storeygard, 2019. "Economic and Political Factors in Infrastructure Investment: Evidence from Railroads and Roads in Africa 1960–2015," Economic History of Developing Regions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(2), pages 156-208, May.
    18. Audrey Rose Menard, 2014. "Do natural resources condition the aid-governance relationship? Evidence from Africa," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 34(2), pages 1317-1326.
    19. Beck, Thorsten & Poelhekke, Steven, 2023. "Follow the money: Does the financial sector intermediate natural resource windfalls?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    20. Pedro C. Vicente & Ines Vilela, 2020. "Preventing violent Islamic radicalization: experimental evidence on anti-social behavior," NOVAFRICA Working Paper Series wp2008, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Nova School of Business and Economics, NOVAFRICA.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Economic Development; Macroeconomic Dynamics; Oil; Resource; Curse; Sovereign Wealth Fund; Uganda;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F0 - International Economics - - General

    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:sae:enejou:v:38:y:2017:i:1:p:103-132. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.