IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/66393.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Basilicata Wealth Fund: resource policy and long-run economic development in Southern Italy

Author

Listed:
  • Iacono, Roberto

Abstract

This paper contributes to the growing political economy literature of within-country natural resources management, by proposing a new resource policy for the oil-rich southern Italian region of Basilicata. The policy proposal is to establish a (regional) wealth fund in which all the royalty revenues from non-renewable natural resource exploitation in Basilicata would be stored and fully converted into low-risk financial assets. The scope is to give priority to long-run investments as to better exploit revenues from large-scale extraction of natural capital. Establishing a wealth fund at the regional sub-national level is a novel approach that can be applied to other resource-rich regions in the world. I label the fund as the Basilicata Wealth Fund (BWF). The BWF would be a regionally owned investment fund, however independently administered from national authorities (for instance, as an independent legal entity under the jurisdiction of the Bank of Italy). In addition, the paper posits a transparent and clear-cut spending fiscal rule in order to let regional authorities use the resource revenues to finance economic policy. The clear advantage from the BWF would be the stronger focus on long-run economic development and the higher accountability, hence avoiding misuse of resource revenues for myopic fiscal spending.

Suggested Citation

  • Iacono, Roberto, 2015. "The Basilicata Wealth Fund: resource policy and long-run economic development in Southern Italy," MPRA Paper 66393, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:66393
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/66393/1/MPRA_paper_66393.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/72858/1/MPRA_paper_72858.pdf
    File Function: revised version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Benedetto Rocchi & Chiara Landi & Gianluca Stefani & Severino Romano & Mario Cozzi, 2015. "Escaping the resource curse in regional development: a case study on the allocation of oil royalties," International Journal of Sustainable Development, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 18(1/2), pages 115-138.
    2. Fernanda Brollo & Tommaso Nannicini & Roberto Perotti & Guido Tabellini, 2013. "The Political Resource Curse," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(5), pages 1759-1796, August.
    3. James Cust & Steven Poelhekke, 2015. "The Local Economic Impacts of Natural Resource Extraction," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 7(1), pages 251-268, October.
    4. Iacono, Roberto, 2017. "A comparison of fiscal rules for resource-rich economies," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 179-193.
    5. Mehmet Caner & Thomas Grennes, 2010. "Sovereign Wealth Funds: The Norwegian Experience," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(4), pages 597-614, April.
    6. Mr. Christian B. Mulder & Mr. Amadou N Sy & Miss Yinqiu Lu & Mr. Udaibir S Das, 2009. "Setting Up a Sovereign Wealth Fund: Some Policy and Operational Considerations," IMF Working Papers 2009/179, International Monetary Fund.
    7. Holden, Steinar, 2013. "Avoiding the resource curse the case Norway," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 870-876.
    8. Torfinn Harding & Frederick Ploeg, 2013. "Official forecasts and management of oil windfalls," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 20(5), pages 827-866, October.
    9. Iacono, Roberto, 2016. "No blessing, no curse? On the benefits of being a resource-rich southern region of Italy," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 346-359.
    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. James Cust & Torfinn Harding & Pierre-Louis Vézina, 2019. "Dutch Disease Resistance: Evidence from Indonesian Firms," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 6(6), pages 1205-1237.
    2. Ralph de Haas & Steven Poelhekke, 2016. "Mining Matters: Natural Resource Extraction and Local Business Constraints," CESifo Working Paper Series 6198, CESifo.
    3. Konte, Maty & Vincent, Rose Camille, 2021. "Mining and quality of public services: The role of local governance and decentralization," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    4. Axbard, Sebastian & Benshaul-Tolonen, Anja & Poulsen, Jonas, 2021. "Natural resource wealth and crime: The role of international price shocks and public policy," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    5. Gritsenko, Daria & Efimova, Elena, 2020. "Is there Arctic resource curse? Evidence from the Russian Arctic regions," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    6. 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.
    7. Morck, Randall & Nakamura, Masao, 2018. "Japan's ultimately unaccursed natural resources-financed industrialization," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 32-54.
    8. Orihuela, José Carlos & Mendieta, Arturo & Pérez, Carlos & Ramírez, Tania, 2021. "From paper institutions to bureaucratic autonomy: Institutional change as a resource curse remedy," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    9. Maldonado, Stanislao, 2014. "The Non-Monotonic Political Effects of Resource Booms," MPRA Paper 85649, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 18 Dec 2017.
    10. Ouoba, Youmanli, 2020. "Natural resources fund types and capital accumulation: A comparative analysis," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    11. Amrita Dhillon & Pramila Krishnan & Manasa Patnam & Carlo Perroni, 2020. "Secession with Natural Resources," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 130(631), pages 2207-2248.
    12. Traviss Cassidy, 2019. "The Long-Run Effects of Oil Wealth on Development: Evidence from Petroleum Geology," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(623), pages 2745-2778.
    13. Iacono, Roberto, 2016. "No blessing, no curse? On the benefits of being a resource-rich southern region of Italy," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 346-359.
    14. Iacono, Roberto, 2017. "A comparison of fiscal rules for resource-rich economies," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 179-193.
    15. Gallego, Jorge & Maldonado, Stanislao & Trujillo, Lorena, 2020. "From curse to blessing? institutional reform and resource booms in Colombia," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 174-193.
    16. Gisele Msann & Viswanathan Pozhamkandath Karthiayani, 2023. "Resource curse and growth challenges in MENA oil exporter countries: A case for governance reforms in the post Arab Spring uprisings context," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(5), pages 992-1007, June.
    17. van Krevel, Charan & Peters, Marlou, 2024. "How natural resource rents, exports, and government resource revenues determine Genuine Savings: Causal evidence from oil, gas, and coal," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 181(C).
    18. Grant Mark Nülle & Graham A. Davis, 2018. "Neither Dutch nor disease?—natural resource booms in theory and empirics," Mineral Economics, Springer;Raw Materials Group (RMG);Luleå University of Technology, vol. 31(1), pages 35-59, May.
    19. De Haas, Ralph & Poelhekke, Steven, 2019. "Mining matters: Natural resource extraction and firm-level constraints," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 109-124.
    20. Nemera Gebeyehu Mamo, 2018. "Essays on natural resources in Africa: local economic development, multi-ethnic coalitions and armed conflict," Economics PhD Theses 0518, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Exhaustible natural resources; Sovereign Wealth Fund; Regional economy; Long-run economic development; Basilicata.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • 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
    • R11 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes
    • R58 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Regional Government Analysis - - - Regional Development Planning and Policy

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:pra:mprapa:66393. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.