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Publications (64)
– Ending Poverty While Protecting Nature
BOOK IN PRODUCTION: ESTIMATED PUBLICATION LATE 2024/EARLY 2025
Working Paper
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Companies in the oil, gas, and mining sectors face ever intensifying scrutiny over their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices and impacts: from civil society but also from investment funds and other stakeholders with ESG mandates. Companies with good practices—and the paper...
Working Paper
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While market mechanisms and private initiatives can deliver much for development, public action is also necessary to: maximize the economic benefits of the extractive industries; manage potentially large capital and revenues flows; minimize adverse environmental and social impacts; and steer the...
Working Paper
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This paper analyses the roles that states, civil society, and international actors can play in tackling the weak governance that sometimes leads to resources being used for private rather than public benefit. It discusses the corruption that bedevils licensing and commodities trading; and oil theft...
Working Paper
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This paper argues for a change in government attitudes to their extractive industries: as enclaves useful primarily as revenue sources. This is too narrow a perspective: it fails to recognize the broader economic linkages that are invariably possible. Achieving greater economic impact requires...
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This paper analyses the risks facing resource-dependent countries. These include: (i) economic mismanagement (the ‘resource curse’); (ii) political mismanagement; (iii) environmental damage (climate change and the destruction of natural capital). It distinguishes ‘risk’ (which can be addressed...
Working Paper
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The extractives industries are highly controversial but remain vitally important in much of the developing world. This paper considers their role in reducing energy poverty and discusses scenarios for the future of the global markets for oil, gas, and metals (emphasizing the increasing importance of...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Measurement and concepts
This study proposes a new measure of Fiscal Dependence on Extractive revenues: FDE. The FDE estimates, simply, the extent to which extractive-producing countries can fund day-to-day government spending with non-extractive revenues.By focusing specifically on the fiscal aspect of dependency - and...
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– Insights from Peru and Kenya
Illicit gold flows constitute a major development challenge for governments and a social responsibility challenge for the jewellery industry, which accounts for the majority of global gold demand. This paper highlights aspects of gold supply chains that lack transparency and may indicate junctures...
In Africa, there is a distressing correlation between debt and the need to export raw materials. A new paradigm is needed in which African countries focus on creating wealth via adding value to their vast raw material riches. Africa is endowed with abundant and diverse natural resources and natural...
– What can we do about it?
The recently concluded COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh had one important outcome for developing countries: the announcement of a loss and damage fund. This fund will help address climate injustice by helping low-income countries confront climate change disasters. However, while the developed world finally...
The green energy transition is projected to cause an increase in metal demand. Will this demand lead to the opening of deep-seabed mining? As of now, seabed mining has been limited to shallow waters, but could mineral-rich deep seabeds provide an opportunity for the developing world? Deep-seabed...
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– Measurement and concepts
The aims of this paper are twofold. It firstly identifies and discusses the extent to which public revenues from natural resources are adequately captured in existing cross-country revenue databases, before exploring the extent to which such data can be used to estimate countries’ fiscal dependence...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
In this study, we develop an empirical framework that allows us to trace out a time path of metal prices. This framework shows that unpredictable shifts in demand, extraction costs and discovery of reserves, make estimation of the slope of this underlying trend an empirical question. Further, the...
Working Paper
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– Trading gold in Bolivia
Most research on illicit financial flows (IFFs) has focused on illicit outflows from developing countries and the role of non-state actors in generating IFFs. Less attention has been paid to processes and interfaces through which IFFs enter formal value chains—in effect being ‘legalized’ before...
Working Paper
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After 50 years of optimistic predictions that marine mining will soon take off, it still remains to be seen if and when this will happen. In 2018 the total value of all marine mining, including both offshore mining and the so far non-existing deep-seabed mining, was estimated to be around US$35...
Displaying 16 of 64 results