Escaping the Resource Curse

With oil prices becoming increasingly volatile, demand for energy rising in China and India, and instability affecting key oil producers in the Middle East, Escaping the Resource Curse surfs the wave of interest in new oil-producing countries. Unfortunately, these producers—such as Sudan and several West African countries—are often better known for poverty, civil conflict, and political instability than for sound resource management policies. For these countries, absorbing substantial new capital inflows without succumbing to civil disorder or corruption poses quite a challenge—one made even more difficult by the set of economic and political distortions collectively known as the “resource curse.” This edited volume, in which leading academics, practitioners, and policymakers focus on overcoming the problems faced by states endowed with large oil and gas reserves, could not have come at a better time.