Resource Management and Transition in Central Asia, Azerbaijan, and Mongolia

Richard Pomfret

No WP11-8, Working Paper Series from Peterson Institute for International Economics

Abstract: The paper presents a comparative analysis of the resource-rich transition economies of Mongolia and the southern republics of the former Soviet Union. For Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, the ability to earn revenue from cotton exports allowed them to avoid reform. Oil in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan was associated with large-scale corruption, but with soaring revenues in the 2000s their institutions evolved and to some extent improved. Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia illustrate the challenges facing small economies with large potential mineral resources, with the former suffering from competition for rents among the elite and the latter from lost opportunities. Overall the countries illustrate that a resource curse is not inevitable among transition economies, but a series of hurdles need to be surmounted to benefit from resource abundance. Neither the similar initial institutions nor those created in the 1990s are immutable.

Keywords: Oil; Gas; Minerals; Central Asia; Resource Curse (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 P35 Q32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cis, nep-cwa, nep-ene and nep-tra
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Journal Article: Resource management and transition in Central Asia, Azerbaijan and Mongolia (2012)
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