Year: 2016
Type: dissertation
Abstract: As petroleum extraction and consumption has steadily increased in recent decades, economists and development researchers have been puzzled by discrepancies in the growth, development, and governance of oil-dependent countries around the world. The divergent development outcomes of oil states beg the following question: what are the political and economic conditions that determine the consequences of oil wealth management in petrol-dependent states? Hypotheses in the literature (including the ‘resource curse,’ ‘poverty trap,’ and ‘rentier state’ models) argue that resource abundance fosters harmful economic practices and poor governance. Rather, I argue that resource abundance and dependence merely exacerbates existing poor political and economic institutions. Economists frequently use wide-scale regression analysis to establish causative explanations for oil wealth mismanagement and poor governance. In order to account for state idiosyncrasy and historical context, I instead use a comparative model, examining divergent outcomes of oil wealth management in two pairs of case studies: Brunei Darussalam and Timor-Leste in Southeast Asia, and Equatorial Guinea and Congo-Brazzaville in sub-Saharan Africa. I find that preexisting political and economic institutions can prominently shape a states’ experience in managing oil wealth. These institutions, including political regime instability, governmental corruption, and armed conflict, all contribute to the idiosyncratic nature of state oil wealth (mis)management.
Author: I. S. Latimer
Language: English
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2274421081