Oil and the Cameroonian Economy: Dual Dependence and the Many Faces of the “Curse”

Léonce Ndikumana (), Hans Tino Mpenya Ayamena and Juste Lokossou
Additional contact information
Léonce Ndikumana: University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Economics and Political Economy Research Institute (PERI)
Hans Tino Mpenya Ayamena: University of Douala, Faculty of Economics and Applied Management
Juste Lokossou: University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Economics

Chapter 7 in Capital Flight from Cameroon, Ghana, and Zambia, 2026, pp 209-253 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract This chapter is part of a project that investigates domestic and global drivers and enablers of capital flight from Cameroon, Ghana, and Zambia. It presents an analysis of the oil sector in Cameroon. While Cameroon is one of the most endowed African countries in a wide range of overground and underground natural resources, it has struggled to leverage these resources to secure a decent living standard for most of its population. Instead of boasting impressive development outcomes, Cameroon is among African resource-rich countries that are known for suffering high financial hemorrhage through capital flight. In a sense, capital flight from Africa has become a chronic manifestation of the “resource curse” that tends to plague countries that are endowed with vast amounts of resources in a context of poor institutions and weak regulatory frameworks. This chapter provides a detailed analysis of the historical emergence of an externally dominated oil sector and the institutional and regulatory arrangements governing the sector to shed light on the causes of the country’s failure to fulfill its potential considering its impressive resource endowment. The evidence may shed light on strategies to usher a new path toward a Cameroonian economy beyond oil.

Date: 2026
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:spr:sprchp:978-3-032-22770-6_7

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783032227706

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-032-22770-6_7

Access Statistics for this chapter

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