Saudi Arabia: Enigmas of a Rentier Economy

Rodney Wilson

Chapter 3 in The Economies of the Middle East, 1979, pp 40-53 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Although petroleum revenue has been pouring into the desert kingdom of Saudi Arabia for almost forty years, the country remains underdeveloped. Few linkages exist between the modern oil sector and the rest of the economy, which is based largely on subsistence farming and nomadic animal husbandry. Dualistic economies are admittedly characteristic of most of the developing countries of the Third World, but the absence of economic integration merits explanation in a country which has long had the financial means to pursue a more balanced policy. The ease with which Saudi Arabia has obtained its income may paradoxically explain its lack of development, since most of this income has been of a rentier nature, accruing from the possession of one scarce resource—petroleum. Today the country presents an almost perfect example of a rentier economy, a state with high consumption but little production, large incomes but no necessity to work for these earnings.

Keywords: Saudi Arabia; Middle East; Foreign Asset; Trade Surplus; Demand Deposit (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1979
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-349-03421-5_3

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9781349034215

DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-03421-5_3

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().