Suchergebnisse

We investigate the Hartwick rule for saving of a nation necessary to sustain a constant level of private consumption for a small open economy with an exhaustible stock of natural resources. The amount by which a country saves and invests less than the marginal resource rents equals the expected capital gains on reserves of natural resources plus the expected increase in interest income on net foreign assets plus the expected fall in the cost of resource extraction due to expected improvements in extraction technology. Effectively, depletion is then postponed until better times. This suggests that it is not necessarily sub-optimal for resource-rich countries to have negative genuine saving. However, in countries with different groups with imperfectly defined property rights on natural resources, political distortions induce faster resource depletion than suggested by the Hotelling rule. Fractionalised societies with imperfect property rights build up more foreign assets than their marginal resource rents, but in the long run accumulate less foreign assets than homogenous societies. Hence, such societies end up with lower sustainable consumption and are worse off, especially if seepage is strong, the number of rival groups is large and the country does not enjoy much monopoly power on the resource market. Genuine saving is zero in such societies. However, World Bank genuine saving figures based on market rather than accounting prices will be negative, albeit less so in more fractionalised societies with less secure property rights.

The political economy of natural resource extraction is analysed in three different contexts. First, if an incumbent faces a threat of being removed once and for all by a rival faction, extraction becomes more voracious, especially if the rebel faction shares rents much more than the incumbent. Second, perennial political conflict cycles are more inefficient if cohesiveness of the constitution or the partisan in-office bias is large and political instability is high. Third, resource wars are more intense if the political system is less cohesive, there is a partisan in-office bias of the incumbent, oil reserves are high, the wage is low, governments can be less frequently removed from office, and fighting technology has less decreasing returns to scale. Resource depletion in such wars is more rapacious if there is more government instability, the political system is less cohesive, and the partisan in-office bias is smaller.

We analyze a power struggle about the control of natural resources where competing factions in society have a private stock of financial assets and a common stock of natural resources with inadequately defined private property rights. We solve a dynamic common-pool problem and obtain political economy variants of the Hotelling rule for resource depletion and the Hartwick saving rule necessary to sustain constant consumption in an economy with exhaustible natural resources. The rate of increase in the price of natural resources and resource depletion are faster than demanded by the Hotelling rule. As a result, the country substitutes away from resources to capital too rapidly so that it saves and invests more than a homogenous society. The power struggle boosts output, but depresses aggregate consumption and social welfare. Genuine saving is nevertheless zero in a fractionalized society, since the too rapid depletion of natural resources is exactly in line with the too rapid accumulation of physical capital. World Bank measures of genuine saving are likely to be over-estimated. This exacerbates the puzzle of why many resource-rich countries experience negative genuine saving rates.

The effects of stochastic oil demand on optimal oil extraction paths and tax, spending and government debt policies are analyzed when the oil demand schedule is linear and preferences quadratic. Without prudence, optimal oil extraction is governed by the Hotelling rule and optimal budgetary policies by the tax and consumption smoothing principle. Volatile oil demand brings forward oil extraction and induces a bigger government surplus. With prudence, the government depletes oil reserves even more aggressively and engages in additional precautionary saving financed by postponing spending and bringing taxes forward, especially if it has substantial monopoly power on the oil market, gives high priority to the public spending target, is very prudent, and future oil demand has high variance. Uncertain economic prospects induce even higher precautionary saving and, if non?oil revenue shocks and oil revenue shocks are positively correlated, even more aggressive oil extraction. In contrast, prudent governments deliberately underestimate oil reserves which induce less aggressive oil depletion and less government saving, but less so if uncertainty about reserves and oil demand are positively correlated.

Are natural resources a "curse" or a "blessing"? The empirical evidence suggests either outcome is possible. The paper surveys a variety of hypotheses and supporting evidence for why some countries benefit and others lose from the presence of natural resources. These include that a resource bonanza induces appreciation of the real exchange rate, de-industrialization and bad growth prospects, and that these adverse effects are more severe in volatile countries with bad institutions and lack of rule of law, corruption, presidential democracies, and underdeveloped financial systems. Another hypothesis is that a resource boom reinforces rent grabbing and civil conflict especially if institutions are bad, induces corruption especially in non-democratic countries, and keeps in place bad policies. Finally, resource rich developing economies seem unable to successfully convert their depleting exhaustible resources into other productive assets. The survey also offers some welfare-based fiscal rules for harnessing resource windfalls in developed and developing economies.

A windfall of natural resource revenue (or foreign aid) faces government with choices of how to manage public debt, investment, and the distribution of funds for consumption, particularly if the windfall is both anticipated and temporary. Standard policy advice follows the permanent income hypothesis in suggesting a sustained increase in consumption supported by interest on accumulated foreign assets (a Sovereign Wealth Fund) once resource revenue are exhausted. However, this strategy is not optimal for capital-scarce developing economies. Incremental consumption should be skewed towards present generations, relative to those in the far future. Savings should be directed to accumulation of domestic private and public capital rather than foreign assets. Optimal policy depends on instruments available to government. We study cases where the government can make lump-sum transfers to consumers; where such transfers are impossible so optimal policy involves cutting distortionary taxation in order to raise investment and wages; and where Ricardian consumers can borrow against future revenues so government only has indirect control of consumption.

The principles of how best to manage the various components of national wealth are outlined, where the permanent income hypothesis, the Hotelling rule and the Hartwick rule play a prominent role. As far as managing natural resource wealth is concerned, a case is made to use an intergenerational sovereign wealth fund to smooth consumption across generations, a liquidity fund for the precautionary buffers to deal with commodity price volatility, and an investment fund to park part of the windfall until the country is ready to absorb extra spending on domestic investment. Capital scarcity implies that a positive part of the windfall should be spent on domestic investment. The conclusions highlight the political economy problems that will have to be tackled with these normative proposals for managing wealth.

In the past ten years interest in the history and heritage of European regional and ethnic conflicts has grown explosively. These not only play a prominent role in collective memory, but also in political debates, cultural property protection, commemorations, and public space. The so-called Crimean Gold exhibition at the Allard Pierson museum has become stateless after the 2014 Russian 'annexation' of Crimea, and is actually put on trial in Amsterdam, claimed by Ukraine and four Crimean museums. Who defines the national identity of conflicted heritage? The author argues that the trial represents the new geopolitical reality of the EU's and NATO's eastward expansion, activated by the Euromaidan revolt and the MH17 crash, and fuelled by transnational memory wars narrated in terms of national trauma and victimhood. The question of ownership is not a legal one, but reveals the highly contested use of the past in post-communist nation building.

Legislation such as the Labour Relations No 66 of 1995 and the Promotion of Access to Information Act No 2 of 2000 has paved the way for creation of a culture of un-coerced disclosure of information in South African organisations. The article reviews progress in respect of information disclosure in South Africa and other countries and discusses the effects of the LRA in regard to disclosure of information to trade unions and workplace forums. It then describes a study conducted by the author and discusses the findings. It concludes with pointing out certain weaknesses in the disclosure process and exhorts managements and the trade unions to work together to improve this important tool for achieving success in organisations and enhancing industrial democracy.

This analysis argues for a system of global economic, social, & political governance in which development aid is part of wider global redistributive mechanisms to foster social progress & development in the twenty-first century. The study provides two arguments in favor of setting up a new system of global governance, & the role of aid in such a new system. First, since in the current international economic system aid cannot cope with adverse external shocks, a new system of global governance is necessary in order to protect LDCs from the volatility of the international economic system. Second, it is argued that a new system of global governance is needed to improve redistribution at the global level to foster social progress & development. 20 References. Adapted from the source document.

Around 100,000 Tutsi became refugees in Tanganyika, Uganda, Burundi, & the Congo in the preindependence Hutu revolution in Rwanda in 1960. The background of this exodus is outlined, & the experiences of the refugees, 1960-1990, are examined. Emphasis is on Tanzania, where refugee settlement was the most successful; initial problems & eventual self-sufficiency & integration are examined. A comparison is provided of how refugees became involved in & scapegoats of ethnic conflicts in the Congo & Uganda, eventually leading to the refugee military invasion of Rwanda from Uganda in 1990. Civil war lasted 1990-1994, ending in the genocide of Tutsi who had remained in Rwanda together with moderate Hutu. The effect of the Tutsi army's selective genocide of Hutu in Burundi, sabotaging all efforts at democratic reform, has had a significant impact on Rwandan ethnic polarization, just as Rwanda's revolution in 1959/60 instilled fear of Hutu majority rule in Burundian Tutsi. 27 References. Adapted from the source document.