IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/imf/imfwpa/2015-236.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Public Investment in a Developing Country Facing Resource Depletion

Author

Listed:
  • Mr. Adrian Alter
  • Matteo Ghilardi
  • Ms. Dalia S Hakura

Abstract

This paper analyzes the tradeoffs between savings, debt and public investment in the Republic of Congo, a developing country with looming oil exhaustibility concerns. Our results highlight the risks to fiscal and capital sustainability of oil exporting countries from large scaling-up in public investment and oil price volatility in view of a projected decline in the oil revenue to GDP ratio. However, structural reforms that improve the efficiency of public investment can allow for a relatively faster buildup of sustainable public capital and sustain higher non-oil growth without adversely affecting the debt ratio or savings. Moreover, we show that even if a government pursues prudent fiscal policy that preserves resource wealth and debt sustainability in the face of exhaustible and volatile resource revenues, low public investment quality in the form of a misallocation of resources can hinder attainment of sustainable public capital and positive non-oil growth.

Suggested Citation

  • Mr. Adrian Alter & Matteo Ghilardi & Ms. Dalia S Hakura, 2015. "Public Investment in a Developing Country Facing Resource Depletion," IMF Working Papers 2015/236, International Monetary Fund.
    • Handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2015/236
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=43388
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Matsuyama, Kiminori, 1992. "Agricultural productivity, comparative advantage, and economic growth," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 317-334, December.
    2. James D. Hamilton, 2009. "Understanding Crude Oil Prices," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2), pages 179-206.
    3. Matteo F. Ghilardi & Sergio Sola, 2016. "Investment scaling up and the role of government," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(38), pages 3605-3625, August.
    4. 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.
    5. Frederick van der Ploeg, 2011. "Natural Resources: Curse or Blessing?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(2), pages 366-420, June.
    6. Gupta, Sanjeev & Kangur, Alvar & Papageorgiou, Chris & Wane, Abdoul, 2014. "Efficiency-Adjusted Public Capital and Growth," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 164-178.
    7. Krugman, Paul, 1987. "The narrow moving band, the Dutch disease, and the competitive consequences of Mrs. Thatcher : Notes on trade in the presence of dynamic scale economies," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1-2), pages 41-55, October.
    8. Mr. Andrew Berg & Mr. Rafael A Portillo & Mr. Edward F Buffie & Ms. Catherine A Pattillo & Luis-Felipe Zanna, 2012. "Public Investment, Growth, and Debt Sustainability: Putting together the Pieces," IMF Working Papers 2012/144, International Monetary Fund.
    9. 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.
    10. 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.
    11. Pritchett, Lant, 2000. "The Tyranny of Concepts: CUDIE (Cumulated, Depreciated, Investment Effort) Is Not Capital," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 361-384, December.
    12. repec:hoo:wpaper:e-92-3 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. repec:dau:papers:123456789/5253 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Christophe Hurlin & Florence Arestoff, 2010. "Are Public Investment Efficient in Creating Capital Stocks in Developing Countries?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 30(4), pages 3177-3187.
    15. Matteo Ghilardi & Mr. Sergio Sola, 2015. "Investment Scaling-up and the Role of Government: the Case of Benin," IMF Working Papers 2015/069, International Monetary Fund.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Andrew Berg & Edward F. Buffie & Catherine Pattillo & Rafael Portillo & Andrea F. Presbitero & Luis‐Felipe Zanna, 2019. "Some Misconceptions About Public Investment Efficiency and Growth," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 86(342), pages 409-430, April.
    4. 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.
    5. Bin Grace Li & Pranav Gupta & Jiangyan Yu, 2017. "From natural resource boom to sustainable economic growth: Lessons from Mongolia," International Economics, CEPII research center, issue 151, pages 7-25.
    6. 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.
    7. Issouf Samaké & Ms. Priscilla S Muthoora & Mr. Bruno Versailles, 2013. "Fiscal Sustainability, Public Investment, and Growth in Natural Resource-Rich, Low-Income Countries: The Case of Cameroon," IMF Working Papers 2013/144, International Monetary Fund.
    8. Shen, Wenyi & Yang, Shu-Chun S. & Zanna, Luis-Felipe, 2018. "Government spending effects in low-income countries," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 201-219.
    9. Agénor, Pierre-Richard, 2016. "Optimal fiscal management of commodity price shocks," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 183-196.
    10. Mr. Giovanni Melina & Yi Xiong, 2013. "Natural Gas, Public Investment and Debt Sustainability in Mozambique," IMF Working Papers 2013/261, International Monetary Fund.
    11. Gurara, Daniel & Kpodar, Kangni & Presbitero, Andrea F. & Tessema, Dawit, 2021. "On the capacity to absorb public investment: How much is too much?☆," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    12. 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.
    13. Wills, Samuel, 2018. "Leave the volatility fund alone: Principles for managing oil wealth," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 332-352.
    14. Firew B Woldeyes, 2013. "Long-Run Effects of Resource Rents in Developing Countries: The role of public investment management," OxCarre Working Papers 105, Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies, University of Oxford.
    15. Sayed O. M. Timuno & Joel Hinaunye Eita & Lanouar Charfeddine, 2020. "Towards an effective fiscal stimulus: Evidence from Botswana," Cogent Economics & Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(1), pages 1790948-179, January.
    16. 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.
    17. Samuel Wills, 2015. "Seven Principles for Managing Resource Wealth," Economics Series Working Papers OxCarre Research Paper 15, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    18. Gerhard Glomm & Juergen Jung, 2015. "A Macroeconomic Analysis Of Energy Subsidies In A Small Open Economy," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 53(4), pages 1783-1806, October.
    19. Jalles, João Tovar & Park , Donghyun & Qureshi, Irfan, 2024. "Public versus Private Investment Multipliers in Emerging Market and Developing Economies: Cross-Country Analysis with a Focus on Asia," ADB Economics Working Paper Series 737, Asian Development Bank.
    20. 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.

    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:imf:imfwpa:2015/236. 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: Akshay Modi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/imfffus.html .

    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.