Title: The Natural Resource Curse I: Pitfalls of Commodity Wealth Jeffrey Frankel Harpel Professor of Capital Formation
1The Natural Resource Curse IPitfalls of
Commodity WealthJeffrey FrankelHarpel
Professor of Capital Formation GrowthHarvard
University
- International Monetary Fund, April 26, 2011
2The Natural Resource Curse
- The NRC pertains especially to oil minerals,
but sometimes to timber agricultural products
too. - Seminal references
- Auty (1990, 2001, 07, 09)
- Sachs Warner (1995, 2001)
- Other studies find a negative effect of oil in
particular, on economic performance - including Kaldor, Karl Said (2007) Ross
(2001) Sala-i-Martin Subramanian (2003) and
Smith (2004). - Frankel, The Natural Resource Curse Survey,
- NBER Working Paper 15836, 2010.
- forthcoming in Export Perils,
- edited by B.Shaffer (U. of Pennsylvania Press
2011)
3- Examples
- Conspicuously high in oil resources and low in
growth Venezuela Gabon. - Conspicuously high in growth and low in natural
resources China other Asian countries. - The overall relationship on average is slightly
negative
4Growth falls with fuel mineral exports
5Are natural resources necessarily bad?
No, of course not.
- Commodity wealth need not necessarily lead to
inferior economic or political development. - Rather, it is a double-edged sword, with both
benefits and dangers. - It can be used for ill as easily as for good.
- The priority for any country should be on
identifying ways to sidestep the pitfalls that
have afflicted other mineral producers in the
past, to find the path of success.
6- The goal is to enjoy the success of
- Chile, vs. Bolivia
- Botswana, vs. Congo
- Norway, vs. Sudan.
- The last section of my paper explores some of
the policies institutional innovations that
might help avoid the natural resource curse and
achieve natural resource blessings instead.
7- How could abundance of commodity wealth be a
curse? - What is the mechanism
- for this counter-intuitive relationship?
-
- At least 7 channels have been suggested
87 Possible Natural Resource Curse Channels
- Downward price trend
- Price volatility
- Crowding-out manufacturing
- Inhibited development of institutions
- Unsustainably rapid depletion as a result of
unenforceable property rights - Proclivity for armed conflict
- The Dutch Disease
9The 7 NRC Channels Elaborated
- World commodity price trend could be downward
(Prebisch-Singer) - High volatility of oil prices could be
problematic - Natural resources could be dead-end sectors
(Matsuyama) they may crowd out manufacturing, - which may be the home of dynamic benefits
spillovers. - Industrialization could be the essence of
development.
10The 7 NRC Channels continued
- 4. Countries where physical command of mineral
deposits by the government or a hereditary elite
automatically confers wealth on the holders may
be less likely to develop the institutions that
are conducive to economic development
(Engerman-Sokoloff ), - e.g., rule of law decentralization of
decision-making, - as compared to countries where moderate taxation
of a thriving market economy is the only way to
finance government.
11The 7 NRC Channels continued
- 5. Non-renewable resources are depleted too fast,
- where it is difficult to enforce property
rights,as under frontier conditions. - 6. Countries that are endowed with minerals may
have a proclivity for armed conflict, which is
inimical to economic growth. -
- 7. Swings in commodity prices can engender
macroeconomic instability (Dutch Disease), - via the real exchange rate
- and government spending.
12(7) The Dutch Disease and Procyclicality
- Developing countries have historically been
prone to procyclicality - Especially procyclical government spending
- Procyclical means destabilizing.
- This is particularly true of commodity
producers. - The Dutch Disease describes unwanted side-effects
from a strong, but perhaps temporary, upward
swing in the world price of the export commodity.
13Procyclicality
- Volatility in developing countries
- arises both from foreign shocks,
- including export commodity price fluctuations,
- and from domestic shocks
- including macroeconomic political instability.
14Procyclicality
- Volatility in developing countries
- Most developing countries in the 1990s brought
under control the chronic runaway budget
deficits, money creation, inflation, that they
experienced, - but many still showed monetary fiscal policy
that was procyclical rather than
countercyclical - They tend to be expansionary in booms
- and contractionary in recessions,
- thereby exacerbating the magnitudes of the
swings. - The aim should be to moderate swings
- -- the countercyclical pattern that economists,
after the Great Depression, originally hoped
discretionary policy would take.
15Procyclicality in developing countries
- The procyclicality of fiscal policy
- Many authors have shown that fiscal policy has
tended to be procyclical in developing countries,
- especially in comparison with industrialized
countries. 1 -
- A major reason for procyclical public spending
receipts from taxes or royalties rise in booms.
The government cannot resist the temptation or
political pressure to increase spending
proportionately, or more. - 1 Cuddington (1989), Tornell Lane (1999),
Kaminsky, Reinhart, Vegh (2004), Talvi Végh
(2005), Alesina, Campante Tabellini (2008),
Mendoza Oviedo (2006), Ilzetski Vegh (2008),
Medas Zakharova (2009) and Gavin Perotti
(1997).
16Procyclicality in developing countries
- The procyclicality of fiscal policy, continued
- Procyclicality is especially pronounced in
countries with natural resources and where
income from those resources tends to dominate the
business cycle. - Cuddington (1989) and Sinnott (2009)
- An important recent development some developing
countries, including commodity producers, have
been able to break the historic pattern in the
most recent cycle - Taking advantage of the boom of 2002-2008
- to run budget surpluses build reserves,
- thereby earning the ability to expand fiscally in
the 2008-09 crisis. - Chile is the outstanding model.
17(i) Public investment projects
- Two large budget items that account for much of
the increased spending from oil booms - (i) investment projects and
- (ii) the government wage bill.
- Regarding the 1st budget item, investment in
infrastructure can have large long-term pay-off
if it is well designed too often in practice,
however, it takes the form of white elephant
projects, which are stranded without funds for
completion or maintenance, when the oil price
goes back down. - Gelb (1986) .
18(ii) Public sector wage bills
- Regarding the 2nd budget item, oil windfalls
have often been spent on higher public sector
wages -- Medas Zakharova (2009) . - They can also go to increasing the number of
workers employed by the government. - Either way, they raise the total public sector
wage bill, which is hard to reverse when oil
prices go back down. - Figures 2 3 plot the public sector wage bill,
for two oil producers, Iran Indonesia. - against primary product prices over the preceding
3 years.
19Irans Government Wage Bill Is Influenced by Oil
Prices Over Preceding 3 Years (1974,
1977-1997.)
Source Frankel (2005b)
20Indonesias Government Wage Bill Is Influenced
by Oil Prices Over Preceding 3 Years (1974,
1977-1997.)
Source Frankel (2005b)
21Public sector wage bills, continued
- There is a clear positive relationship.
- That the relationship is strong with a 3-year lag
shows the problem oil prices may have fallen
over 3 years, but public sector wages cannot
easily be cut nor workers laid off. - Arezki Ismail (2010) find that current
government spending increases in boom times, but
is downward-sticky.
22The Dutch Disease 5 side-effects of a commodity
boom
- 1) A real appreciation in the currency
- 2) A rise in government spending
- 3) A rise in nontraded goods prices
- 4) A resultant shift of resources out of
non-export-commodity traded goods - 5) A current account deficit
23The Dutch Disease The 5 effects elaborated
- 1) A real appreciation in the currency
- taking the form of nominal currency appreciation
if the exchange rate floats - e.g., floating-rate oil exporters
- Kazakhstan, Mexico, Norway, Russia.
- or the form of money inflows inflation if the
exchange rate is fixed 1 - e.g. fixed-rate oil-exporters, the UAE Saudi
Arabia. - 2) A rise in government spending
- in response to increased availability of tax
receipts or royalties.
24The Dutch Disease 5 side-effects of a commodity
boom
- 3) An increase in nontraded goods prices (goods
services such as housing that are not
internationally traded), - relative to traded goods (manufactures
other internationally traded goods other than
the export commodity). - 4) A resultant shift of resources out of
non-export-commodity traded goods - pulled by the more attractive returns in the
export commodity and in non-traded goods.
25The Dutch Disease 5 side-effects of a commodity
boom
- 5) A current account deficit
- thereby incurring international debt that may be
difficult to service when the boom ends 2. - Most developing countries avoided it in 2003-10.
- 2 Manzano Rigobon (2008) the negative
Sachs-Warner effect of resource dependence on
growth rates during 1970-1990 was mediated
through international debt incurred when
commodity prices were high. - Arezki Brückner (2010a) commodity price booms
lead to increased government spending, external
debt default risk in autocracies. - Arezki Brückner (2010b) the dichotomy extends
also to effects on sovereign spreads paid by
autocratic vs democratic commodity producers.
26Summary Channels of the NRC
- (1) Commodity price volatility is high, imposing
risk costs. - (2) Specialization can crowd out the
manufacturing sector. - (3) Depletion can be unsustainably rapid,
- especially if property rights are not adequately
protected. - (4) Mineral riches can lead to civil war.
-
- (5) Mineral endowments can lead to poor
institutions, such as corruption, inequality,
class structure, chronic power struggles, and
absence of rule of law and property rights. - (6) The Dutch Disease. A commodity boom
gt real currency appreciation and increased
government spending, gt which expand nontraded
sector and render uncompetitive non-commodity
export sectors such as manufactures.
27The Natural Resource Curse should not be
interpreted as a rule that resource-rich
countries are doomed to failure.
- The question is what policies to adopt to
improve the chances of prosperity. - Destruction or renunciation of resource
endowments, to avoid dangers such as the
corruption of leaders, will not be one of these
policies. - The survey concludes with ideas for
policies/institutions designed to address
aspects of the resource curse and thereby
increase the chance of economic success.
28(No Transcript)
29Appendices 1) The possible NRC channels in
detail2) Procyclical capital flows3 cycles of
flows to developing countries3) Skeptics of the
NRC
30Appendix 1 The possible NRC channels in detail
- (1) The claim of a negative trend in commodity
prices on world markets was already dealt with
the data do not suggest a robust long-term
trend, certainly not a negative one if updated to
2010.
30
31(1) Long-term world price trend
- (i) Determination of the price on world markets
- (ii) The old structuralist school
(Prebisch-Singer) - The hypothesis of a declining commodity price
trend - (iii) Hypotheses of a rising price trend
- Hotelling
- Malthus
- (iv) Empirical evidence
- Statistical time series studies
31
32(i) The determination of the export price on
world markets
- Developing countries tend to be smaller
economically than major industrialized countries,
and more likely to specialize in the exports of
basic commodities. - As a result, they are more likely to fit the
small open economy model - they can be regarded as price-takers,
- That is, the prices of their export goods are
generally taken as given on world markets.
32
33(ii) The old structuralist school Raul
Prebisch (1950) Hans Singer (1950)
- The hypothesis a declining long run trend in
prices of mineral agricultural products - relative to the prices of manufactured goods.
- The theoretical reasoning world demand for
primary products is inelastic with respect to
world income. - That is, for every 1 increase in income, raw
materials demand rises by less than 1. - Engels Law, an (older) proposition households
spend a lower fraction of their income on basic
necessities as they get richer. - Demand gt P oil
33
34(iii) Hypotheses of rising trendsHotelling
on depletable resourcesMalthus on geometric
population growth.
- Persuasive theoretical arguments that we should
expect oil prices to showan upward trend in the
long run.
34
35Assumptions for Hotelling model
- (1) Non-perishable non-renewable resources
- Deposits in the earths crust are fixed in total
supply and are gradually being depleted. - (2) Secure property rights
- Whoever currently has claim to the resource can
be confident that it will retain possession, - unless it sells to someone else,
- who then has equally safe property rights.
- This assumption excludes cases where warlords
compete over physical possession of the
resource. - It also excludes cases where private mining
companies fear that their contracts might be
abrogated or their holdings nationalized.
35
36One more assumption, to keep the Hotelling model
simple
- (3) The fixed deposits are easily accessible
- the costs of exploration extraction are small
compared to the value of the mineral. - Hotelling (1931) deduced from these assumptions
the theoretical principle - the price of oil in the long run should rise at
a rate equal to the interest rate.
36
37The Hotelling logic
- The owner chooses how much mineral to extract
- and how much to leave in the ground.
- Whatever is mined can be sold at todays price
(price-taker assumption) - and the proceeds invested in bank deposits
- or US Treasury bills, which earn the current
interest rate. - If the value of the commodity in the ground is
not expected to rise in the future, then the
owner has an incentive to extract more of it
today, so that he earns interest on the
proceeds.
37
38The Hotelling logic, continued
- As minng companies worldwide react in this way,
they drive down the price today, - below its perceived long-run level.
- When the current price is below its long-run
level, companies will expect the price to rise in
the future. - Only when the expectation of future appreciation
is sufficient to offset the interest rate will
the commodity market be in equilibrium. - Only then will mining companies be close to
indifferent between extracting at a faster rate
and a slower rate.
38
39The complication supply is not fixed.
- True, at any point in time there is a certain
stock of reserves that have been discovered. - But the historical pattern has long been that,
as that stock is depleted, new reserves are
found. - When the price goes up, it makes exploration
development profitable for deposits farther
under the surface. - especially as new technologies are developed
for exploration extraction.
39
40What is the overall statistical trend in
commodity prices in the long run?
- Some authors find a slight upward trend,
- some a slight downward trend. 1
- The answer seems to depend, more than anything
else, on the date of the end of the sample - Studies written after the 1970s boom found an
upward trend, - but those written after the 1980s found a
downward trend, - even when both went back to the early 20th
century. - 1 Cuddington (1992), Cuddington, Ludema
Jayasuriya (2007), Cuddington Urzua (1989),
Grilli Yang (1988), Pindyck (1999), Hadass
Williamson (2003), Reinhart Wickham (1994),
Kellard Wohar (2005), Balagtas Holt (2009)
and Harvey, Kellard, Madsen Wohar (2010).
40
41(2) Effects of Volatility
- Is volatility per se bad for economic growth?
- Cyclical shifts of resources back forth across
sectors may incur needless transaction costs. - A diversified country may indeed be betterthan
one 100 specialized in minerals. - On the other hand, the private sector dislikes
risk as much as the government does, and will
take steps to mitigate it - thus one must think where the market failure
lies before assuming that a policy of deliberate
diversification is necessarily justified.
41
42Effects of volatility, continued
- Policy-makers may not be better than individual
private agents at discerning whether a commodity
boom is temporary or not. - But the government cannot ignore the issue of
volatility - When it comes to exchange rate or fiscal policy,
governments must necessarily make judgments
about the likely permanence of shocks. - More on medium-term cycles when we get to the
Dutch Disease
42
43(3) Do natural resources crowd out
manufacturing?
- Matsuyama (1992) provided an influential model
- the manufacturing sector is assumed to be
characterized by learning by doing, while the
primary sector (agriculture, in his paper) is
not. - Also van Wijnbergen (1984) and Gylfason,
Herbertsson Zoega (1999). - The implication
- deliberate policy-induced diversification out of
primary products into manufacturing is
justified, and - a permanent commodity boom that crowds out
manufacturing can indeed be harmful.
43
44Counterarguments
- There is no reason why learning by doing should
occur only in manufacturing tradables. - Nontradable sectors can enjoy learning by doing.
1 - E.g., construction
- The mineral sector can as well.
- The USA is one example of a country that has
enjoyed big productivity growth in commodity
sectors. - Productivity gains have been aided by American
public investment, - since the late 19th century, in such knowledge
infrastructure institutions as the U.S.
Geological Survey, School of Mines, and
Land-Grant Colleges. 2 -
- 1 Torvik (2001) and Matsen Torvik (2005).
- 2 Wright Czelusta (2003, p.6, 25 18-21).
44
45Counterarguments, continued
- Public investment in knowledge infrastructure ?
government subsidy or ownership of the resources
themselves. - In Latin America, e.g., public monopoly ownership
and prohibition on importing foreign expertise or
capital has often stunted development of the
mineral sector, whereas privatization has set it
free. - Attempts by governments to force linkages between
the mineral sector and processing industries have
often failed.
45
46(4) Institutions
- Recent thinking in economic development
- The quality of institutions is the deep
fundamental factor that determines which
countries experience good performance. 1 - It is futile (e.g., for the IMF World Bank) to
recommend good macroeconomic or microeconomic
policies if the institutional structure is not
there to support them. - 1 Barro (1991) and North (1994).
46
47What are weak institutions?
- A typical list
- inequality,
- corruption,
- insecure property rights,
- intermittent dictatorship,
- ineffective judiciary branch, and
- lack of any constraints to prevent elites
politicians from plundering the country. - Quality of institutions has been quantified by
World Bank, Freedom House, Transparency
International, and others. - Rodrik, Subramanian Trebbi (2003) use a rule of
law indicator and protection of property rights
(taken from Kaufmann, Kraay Zoido-Lobaton,
2002). - Acemoglu, Johnson, Robinson (2001) use a
measure of expropriation risk to investors. - Acemoglu, Johnson, Robinson, Thaicharoen (2003)
use the extent of constraints on the executive.
47
48Institutions can be endogenous
- the result of economic growth rather than the
cause. - The same problem is encountered with other
proposed fundamental determinants of growth,
e.g., openness to trade and freedom from
tropical diseases. - Many institutions tend to evolve endogenously,
in response to the level of income, - such as the structure of financial markets,
- mechanisms of income redistribution social
safety nets, tax systems, and intellectual
property rules
48
49Addressing endogeneity of institutions
statistically
- Econometricians address the problem of
endogeneity by means of the technique of
instrumental variables. - What is a good instrumental variable for
institutions, an exogenous determinant? - Acemoglu, Johnson Robinson (2001) introduced
the mortality rates of colonial settlers. - The theory is that, out of all the lands that
Europeans colonized, only those where Europeans
actually settled were given good European
institutions. - Acemoglu et al figured that initial settler
mortality determined whether Europeans settled
in large numbers.1 - 1 Glaeser, et al, (2004) argue against the
settler variable. Hall Jones (1999) consider
latitude and the speaking of English or other
European languages as proxies for European
institutions.
49
50Institutions Econometric findings
- The finding is the same, regardless of IV
- Institutions trump everything else Rodrik et
al (2002) - Acemoglu et al (2002)
- Easterly Levine (2002)
- Hall Jones (1999)
- Geography and history matter mainly as
determinants of institutions - which is not to say that institutions dont also
have other important determinants. - In any case, institutions are important.
50
51The rent cycling theory as enunciated by Auty
(1990, 2001, 07, 09)
- Economic growth requires recycling rents via
markets rather than via patronage. - In oil countries the rents elicit a political
contest to capture ownership, - whereas in low-rent countries the government must
motivate people to create wealth, - e.g., by pursuing comparative advantage,
promoting equality, fostering civil society.
51
52A related view by economic historians Engerman
Sokoloff (1997, 2000, 2002)
- Why did industrialization take place in North
America, - not Latin America?
- Lands endowed with extractive industries
plantation crops developed slavery, inequality,
dictatorship, and state control, - whereas those climates suited to fishing small
farms developed institutions of individualism,
democracy, egalitarianism, and capitalism. - When the Industrial Revolution came, the latter
areas were well-suited to make the most of it. - Those that had specialized in extractive
industries were not, - because society had come to depend on class
structure authoritarianism, rather than on
individual incentive and decentralized
decision-making.
52
53Econometric findings that point-source
resources such as oil and minerals lead to
poor institutions
The theory is thought to fit Middle Eastern oil
exporters well. E.g., Iran. Mahdavi
(1970), Skocpol (1982, p. 269), and Smith (2007).
- Isham, Woolcock, Pritchett, Busby (2005)
- Sala-I-Martin Subramanian (2003)
- Bulte, Damania Deacon (2005)
- Mehlum, Moene Torvik (2006)
- Arezki Brückner (2009).
53
54Which comes first,minerals or institutions?
- Some question the assumption that mineral
discoveries are exogenous and institutions
endogenous. - Mineral wealth is not necessarily the cause and
institutions the effect, rather than the other
way around. - Norman (2009) the discovery development of
oil is not purely exogenous, but rather is
endogenous with respect to the efficiency of the
economy.
54
55The important determinant is whether the country
already has good institutions at the time that
minerals are discovered, in which case it is
put to use for the national welfare, instead of
the welfare of an elite, on average.
- Mehlum, Moene Torvik (2006),
- Robinson, Torvik Verdier (2006),
- McSherry (2006),
- Smith (2007) and
- Collier Goderis (2007).
- Luong Weinthal (2010), in a study of the 5
oil-producing former Soviet republicsthe choice
of ownership structure makes the difference as
to whether oil turns out a blessing rather than a
curse.
55
56The combination ofdevelopment weak
institutions oil
- Bhattacharyya Hodler (2009) find that natural
resource rents lead to corruption, but only in
the absence of high-quality democratic
institutions. -
- Collier Hoeffler (2009) find that when
developing countries have democracies, as opposed
to advanced countries, they tend to feature weak
checks and balances - thus, when developing countries also have high
natural resource rents the result is bad for
economic growth.
57(5) Unsustainably rapid depletion
- What happens when a depletable natural resource
is indeed depleted? - This question is important for 3 reasons
- Protection of environmental quality.
- A motivation for the strategy of economic
diversification. - A motivation for the Hartwick rule
- All rents from exhaustible natural resources
should be invested in other assets, so that
future generations do not suffer a diminution in
total wealth (natural resource plus reproducible
capital) and therefore in the flow of
consumption. - Hartwick (1977) and Solow (1986).
57
58Rapid depletion, continued
- Each of these problems would be much less severe
if full assignment of property rights were
possible, - thereby giving the owners adequate incentive to
conserve the resource in question. - But often this is not possible,
- either physically
- or politically.
- Especially in a frontier situation.
- The difficulty in enforcing property rights over
some non-renewable resources constitutes a
category of natural resource curse of its own.
58
59 Unenforceable property rights over
depletable resources
- Some natural resources do not lend themselves to
property rights, whether the government wants to
apply them or not. - Very different from the theory that the physical
possession of point-source mineral wealth
undermines the motivation for the government to
establish a regime of property rights for the
rest of the economy. - Overfishing, overgrazing, over-use of water are
classic examples of the tragedy of the commons
that applies to open access resources. - Individual fisherman or farmers have no incentive
to restrain themselves, while the fisheries or
pastureland or water aquifers are collectively
depleted.
59
60Unenforceable property rights, continued
- The difficulty in imposing property rights is
particularly severe when the resource is - dispersed over a wide
- area, as timberland.
- But even the classic point-source resource, oil,
can suffer the problem, especially when wells
drilled from different plots of land hit the
same underground deposit.
60
61Unenforceable property rights, continued
- This market failure can invalidate some standard
neoclassical economic theorems in the case of
open access resources. - The resource will be depleted more rapidly than
the optimization of the Hotelling calculation
calls for. 1 - The benefits of free trade may be another
casualty - If exports exacerbate the excess rate of
exploitation, - the country might be better worse off.
21 E.g., Dasgupta Heal (1985). 2
Brander Taylor (1997).
61
62(6) War
- Where a valuable resource such as oil or diamonds
is there for the taking, factions will likely
fight over it. - Oil minerals are correlated with civil war.
- Collier Hoeffler (2004), Collier (2007),
Fearon Laitin (2003) and Humphreys (2005). - Chronic conflict in such oil-rich countries as
Angola Sudan comes to mind. - Civil war is, in turn, very bad for economic
development.
62
63Procyclicality in developing countries
- Appendix 2 Procyclical capital flows
- According to theory (intertemporal
optimization), countries should borrow during
temporary downturns, - to sustain consumption investment, and should
repay or accumulate net foreign assets during
temporary upturns. - In practice, it does not always work this way.
Capital flows are more procyclical than
countercyclical. 1 - Theories to explain this involve capital market
imperfections, - e.g., asymmetric information or the need for
collateral. - 1 Kaminsky, Reinhart, Vegh (2005) Reinhart
Reinhart (2009) Gavin, Hausmann, Perotti Talvi
(1996) and Mendoza Terrones (2008).
63
64Procyclicality in developing countries
- Procyclical capital flows, continued
- As countries evolve more market-oriented
financial systems, the capital inflows during the
boom phase show up in prices for land
buildings, and also in prices of financial
assets. - Prices of equities bonds are summary measures
of the extent of speculative enthusiasm, - often useful for predicting which countries are
vulnerable to crises in the future.
64
65Appendix 2 Procyclical capital flows 3 cycles
in capital flows to emerging markets
- 1st developing country lending boom (recycling
petro dollars) 1975-1981 - Ended in international debt crisis 1982
- 7 Lean years (Lost Decade) 1982-1989
- 2nd lending boom (emerging markets) 1990-96
- Ended in East Asia crisis 1997
- 7 Lean years 1997-2003
- 3rd boom (incl. China India this time)
2003-2008 - 4th boom? 2010-
66This time, many countries used the inflowsto
build up forex reserves, rather thanto finance
Current Account deficits
2003-07boom
1991-97 boom
67Procyclicality in developing countries
- Procyclical capital flows, continued
- In the commodity emerging market booms of
2003-11, net capital flows have typically gone
to countries with current account surpluses,
especially Asians and commodity producers in the
Middle East Latin America, - where they showed up in record accumulation of
foreign exchange reserves. - This is in contrast to the two previous cycles,
1975-1981 and 1990-97, when the capital flows to
developing countries largely went to finance
current account deficits.
67
68Procyclicality in developing countries
- One interpretation of procyclical capital flows
is that they result from procyclical fiscal
policy - when governments increase spending in booms, the
deficit is financed by borrowing from abroad. - When they are forced to cut spending in
downturns, it is to repay the excessive debt
incurred during the upturn. - Another interpretation of procyclical capital
flows to developing countries is that they
pertain especially to mineral exporters. - We consider procyclical fiscal policy, return to
the mineral commodity cycle (Dutch disease) in
their own sub-sections.
68
69What characteristics have helped emerging markets
resist financial contagion?
- High FX reserves and/or floating currency
- Low foreign-denominated debt (currency mismatch)
- Low short-term debt (maturity mis-match)
- High Foreign Direct Investment
- Strong initial budget, allowing room to ease.
- High export/GDP ratio,
- Sachs (1985) Eaton Gersovitz (1981), Rose
(2002) Calvo, Izquierdo Talvi (2003) Edwards
(2004) Cavallo Frankel ( 2008). - In the 2008-09 crisis, many of the historical
Early Warning Indicators worked, especially
reserves - Frankel Saravelos (2010)
70Appendix 3 Skeptics argue that commodity exports
are endogenous. 1
- On the one hand, basic trade theory saysA
country may show a high mineral share in exports,
not necessarily because it has a higher
endowment of minerals than others (absolute
advantage) but because it does not have the
ability to export manufactures (comparative
advantage). - This could explain negative statistical
correlations between mineral exports and economic
development, - invalidating the common inference that minerals
are bad for growth. - 1 Maloney (2002) and Wright Czelusta (2003,
04, 06).
71Commodity exports are endogenous, continued.
- On the other hand, skeptics also have plenty of
examples where successful institutions and
industrialization went hand in hand with rapid
development of mineral resources. - Countries that were able to develop efficiently
their resource endowments as part of strong
economy-wide growth include - the USA during its pre-war industrialization
period 1, - Venezuela from the 1920s to the 1970s, Australia
since the 1960s, Norway since 1969 oil
discoveries, Chile since adoption of a new mining
code in 1983, Peru since a privatization program
in 1992, and Brazil since the lifting of
restrictions on foreign mining participation in
1995. 2 - 1 David Wright (1997).
- 2 Wright Czelusta (2003, pp. 4-7, 12-13,
18-22).
72Commodity exports are endogenous, continued.
- Examples of countries that were equally
well-endowed geologically but that failed to
develop their natural resources efficiently
include - Chile and Australia before World War I,
- and Venezuela since the 1980s.3
- 3 Hausmann (2003, p.246) Venezuelas growth
collapse took place after 60 years of expansion,
fueled by oil. If oil explains slow growth, what
explains the previous fast growth?