Research Library

Despite its massive geological endowment and receiving what could be considered the largest windfall in its economic history, Venezuela entered 2020 in the middle of an unprecedented economic crisis. The Covid-19 pandemic and turbulence in oil markets represent the latest in a string of problems that expose the country’s vulnerability.

The history of the oil sector in the developing word has been characterized by cycles of investment, often followed by cycles of resource nationalism. Understanding the dynamics behind resource nationalism in Latin America is crucial for designing institutional frameworks that limit the cycles and induce long-term resource policies that foster the development of the abundant resource endowments in the region.

The authors explore the history of the resource curse and provide summarize the working paper series titled “The Role of Foreign Direct Investment in Resource-Rich Regions.”

Venezuela, which has one of the largest hydrocarbon endowments in the world, offers a striking case study on the resource curse, write Francisco Monaldi, Igor Hernández and José La Rosa. This working paper is part of a series titled “The Role of Foreign Direct Investment in Resource-Rich Regions.”

The authors evaluate Argentina’s energy sector and test the hypothesis that investments in tight oil and shale gas extraction expose investors to fewer risks than extracting conventional oil and gas. This working paper is part of a series titled “The Role of Foreign Direct Investment in Resource-Rich Regions.”

Energy fellow Jim Krane investigates the strategy of “security through investment,” in which states deliberately use foreign direct investment to balance against a regional hegemon. This working paper is part of a series titled “The Role of Foreign Direct Investment in Resource-Rich Regions.”

The authors examine the recent attacks on oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf nations to shed light on the current state of U.S.-Gulf strategic relations and the potential directions of its evolution in coming years.

Indigenous natural resource wealth can provide a basis for robust economic development and broad macroeconomic development, especially when there is appropriate governance and robust legal and regulatory institutions. But a lack of institutional fortitude in many regions around the world has contributed to failure to translate resource wealth into broader macroeconomic wealth.

While sanctions on Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline project would be very well received in Central and Eastern Europe, they could make the already strained relationship between U.S. and its Western European allies even more challenging, the author writes in a Forbes blog post: http://bit.ly/305Cc1F and the Baker Institute Blog.