O objetivo desta tese é avaliar a contribuição do petróleo no desenvolvimento econômico da Venezuela, entre 1950/2006. Investiga-se por que uma economia rica em petróleo ainda não conseguiu industrializar-se. Seguindo os diferentes períodos governamentais, examinam-se a contribuição das políticas macroeconômicas sobre o desenvolvimento e a questão da doença holandesa e do capitalismo rentístico. Segundo a teoria da base econômica, as regiões crescem em torno de uma base exportadora, exercendo efeitos de encadeamento sobre o setor de mercado interno. A exportação de petróleo impulsiona a economia venezuelana ao comprar insumos e gerar rendas. A intervenção do governo transformou a Venezuela em um dos maiores exportadores de petróleo, cabendo à estatal PDVSA a extração, refino e exportação de petróleo. Contudo, o desenvolvimento da indústria venezuelana ficou prejudicado pelo capitalismo rentístico, paternalismo e populismos governamentais. A renda petrolífera acomodou as classes dirigentes e inibiu a formação do empresariado. Já a doença holandesa parece descartada pela tendência à desvalorização cambial e pela relação positiva entre crescimento das exportações e crescimento do PIB. Reduções dos preços internacionais do petróleo, evasão de divisas, inflação e aumento da dívida pública, entre outros problemas, dificultavam as finanças públicas e o desenvolvimento econômico do país. Ao longo do tempo, a Venezuela deixou de investir em projetos de desenvolvimento. Nos últimos anos, sobretudo, o governo tem priorizado os gastos sociais, em detrimento de investimentos produtivos. Os indicadores sociais mostraram melhorias após 2004, mas o crescimento econômico baseia-se no consumo, gerando pressões inflacionárias. Crises internacionais poderão comprometer o desenvolvimento econômico. Sugerem-se políticas de diversificação produtiva: alimentos e matérias-primas (agroindústrias, petroquímicos), diversificação das exportações, investimentos em ferrovias, portos mais ágeis e de menor custo, saneamento básico, agricultura irrigada, construção civil, educação técnica, saúde, previdência social e segurança pública. / The aim of this thesis is to assess the contribution of oil to the economic development of Venezuela between 1950/2006. We try to understand why an oil-rich economy failed to industrialize itself. Following the different periods of government, we examine the contribution of macroeconomic policies to the development of Venezuela and the issues of Dutch disease and rentístico capitalism. According to basic economic theory, regions grow around an export base creating chaining effects throughout the domestic market. In the case of Venezuela oil industrial drives the economy through inputs acquisition and incomes generation. The intervention of the Venezuelan government turned in one of the world s largest exporters of oil, leaving to state owned PDVSA the extraction, refining and export of oil the country. However the industry's development was hampered by the Venezuelan rentístico capitalism, government paternalism and populism. The oil income accommodated the ruling classes and inhibited the formation of entrepreneurial class. On the other hand we can shrug off the Dutch disease hipothesis due to observed currency devaluation and positive relationship between growth in exports and GDP growth. Finally, international oil prices, reductions foreign exchange evasions, inflation and increasing public debt, among other problems, hindered public finances and economic development in the country. Over time, Venezuela has ceased to invest in development projects. In recent years, particularly, the government has prioritized social spending rather than engaging in productive investments. Social indicators have shown improvements after 2004, but economic growth is based on consumption, generating inflationary pressures. International crises can undermine economic development. We suggest some policy diversification: food and raw materials (agribusiness, petrochemicals), exports diversification, investments in railroads, more efficient ports, sanitation, irrigated agriculture, construction, technical education, health, social welfare and public safety.

The objectives of this thesis are to: (1) examine if the resource curse exists in the context of Libya; (2) assess the role of institutions in avoiding or minimising the resource curse, and; (3) evaluate institutional and economic reforms required, and the best options to diversify the economy from oil, hence avoid the resource curse in Libya. To achieve these, three approaches are applied, (i) a three country comparative analysis; (ii) Libya country-level time-series analysis, and; (iii) institutional descriptive analysis. This thesis uses time-series data and annual datasets covering 1970-2010. Johansen’s co-integration is used to establish the long-run equilibrium relationship among the variables in the models. The Johansen co-integration test, based on the Trace and Maximum Eigenvalue statistics, is applied. In the first approach, the three case studies included in the study are Nigeria, Norway and UAE, with outcomes suggesting that Norway managed to avoid the Dutch disease, the UAE show no major signs of the resource curse, Norway and the UAE have largely managed to overcome Dutch disease, while Nigeria suffers a management curse. The first model suggests that Libya may experience a resource curse, but this may not be as a result of an appreciation of the real exchange rate. A 1% increase in the oil price will cause the Libyan exchange rate to increase (depreciate) by 1.41%. The country could potentially suffer from Dutch disease, but no evidence can be brought by the first model alone. In an attempt to reinforce the first analysis, the second model examined the sectoral impacts of the Dutch disease. Three relations are estimated; tradable sectors (manufacturing and agricultural), and non-tradable sectors (construction and services). These were all found to have been affected by oil revenue. This therefore confirms the existence of Dutch disease in Libya. The descriptive statistics analysis is used alongside five governance indicators: political stability, government effectiveness, and regulatory quality, rule of law and control of corruption. It is concluded that the quality of institutions in Libya affects economic growth negatively. The study holds several implications for policy-makers.

La notion de syndrome hollandais n’est pas une notion nouvelle mais elle reste toujours d’actualité car l’expansion pétrolière dans un pays en développement produit des effets pervers dans l’économie du pays. Cela se traduit par la contraction des secteurs produisant des biens échangeables en dehors du secteur en boom et le développement des secteurs produisant des biens non échangeables. Cette thèse se propose, à la lumière des théories économiques, d’analyser l’impact qu’aura la hausse du prix du pétrole sur l'économie de l'Iran sous la problématique du syndrome hollandais.Jusqu’au début de la seconde moitié du siècle précédent, l’Iran était un pays principalement voué à l’agriculture, une agriculture vivrière, sous la domination de grands propriétaires. Avec la nationalisation de son pétrole en 1951, ce pays était enfin en mesure de s’assurer des revenus nécessaires au développement économique. Mais il bascula immédiatement dans une économie basée sur la seule exploitation et exportation du pétrole. Il s’agissait d’une économie de rente pétrolière dont la gestion et la redistribution n’orienta pas les investissements des capitaux vers les secteurs productifs en biens de consommation et en emploi. Le modèle d’équilibre général calculable calibré sur les données de la matrice de comptabilité sociale de l’Iran pour 2001, a montré que l’abondance temporaire de ressources extérieures a privilégié le développement d’activités qui n’assurent pas, à elles seules, la croissance future. Les infrastructures, le bâtiment et les services se sont étendus au détriment de l’agriculture ; les industries manufacturières ont peu progressé. / Iran as a country dominated by oil exports offers unique insights and rich rewards considering its economic and socio-political environment. Although according to a resource-based analysis this economy has the potential of being the world's 20th strongest economy because of its rich reserves in minerals and other natural resources alongside with country's geo-strategic position. It really seems strange and unbelievable how Iran can remain underdeveloped while having so many rare resources highly appreciated by the rest of the world. How we can explain this incoherence? The classic economic model describing Dutch Disease was developed by the economists W. Max Corden and J. Peter Neary in 1982. The so-called "Dutch Disease" as an economic concept explains the seeming relationship between natural resource abundance in a country and decline in other economic sectors specially manufacturing. This theory reveals that an increase in revenues from natural resources will de-industrialize the economy by raising exchange rate, which makes manufacturing sectors to become less competitive. The primary purpose of this paper is to determine if Iranian economy is suffering from this problem and if so what will be the impact of this issue on different sectors economy of Iran. In this paper, using an applied general equilibrium model, and not partial equilibrium model, we analyze Dutch disease in Iranian economy. We use the model that has been made by Dr Lofgren as a base and extend and adjust it for Iran economy. In order to solve the general equilibrium pattern numerically, GAMS software package can be used which is a powerful tool for solving linear and nonlinear equations.

This thesis proves that Venezuela is going through the so called and shows all the effects of this disease to international trade indicators and finally evaluates which proposal how to help Venezuela to deal with it is most in line with the empirical data from World Bank and FRED. All the empirical evidences for Dutch disease worldwide effects are demonstrated on Oman, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Ghana and Norway. The hypothesis about influences of Dutch disease on international trade of Venezuela was proved and discussed by correlation analysis. Among key focused metrics are included GDP growth, Exports and Imports of goods and services, Unemployment, General government final consumption expenditure and Real effective exchange rate.

To establish the economic impact of petroleum in the UK, this paper uses the synthetic control method. By constructing an artificial UK economy without oil, from the donor pool of OECD economies, it establishes the counterfactual time path of capital stock the UK would have had if it lacked the petroleum endowment. Comparing the observed time path of capital stock with its counterfactual, one can witness that the petroleum extraction has reduced the UK’s capital stock with an average of 17 % since 1970, despite the UK having arguably the best quality of institutions. Dose-response tests suggest that it is possible to attribute the impact to the petroleum production. Performed robustness and sensitivity tests together with several falsification tests show that the result is robust to alternations in the donor pool, the predictor variables and alternative explanations. The finding raises a question regarding the quality of institutions, advanced by Mehlum, Moene and Torvik and claimed that the resource curse only occurs in economies with low quality of institutions.

The study sought to answer three research questions regarding the impact of the new oil sector on the economy of Ghana. The areas covered by these questions include: oil price developments and their impact on economic activities in Ghana, the overall productive impact of the oil sector on economic multipliers and linkages of other sectors of the economy as well as the impact of the sector on traditional agriculture, manufacturing and underground economic activities in Ghana. For the first research question on the impact of shocks to crude oil prices on economic activities, the study employed a Vector Error Correction model for the analysis. The modelled variables were GDP and crude oil prices. GDP was used as the measure of economic activities. Both variables were transformed into logarithmic form. The results show that Ghana as an oil exporting country and a net oil importer is affected by fluctuations in oil prices. It suggests that a one standard error shock to crude oil prices has a transitory and negative effect on GDP in Ghana after one year.

This thesis within Industrial Economics and Applied Mathematics examines the term commodity currency. The thesis delves into analysing the characteristics and consequences of such a currency through a macroeconomic perspective while discussing previous studies within the matter. The applied mathematical statistics section audits the correlation between the currency and the commodities of the exporting country through a time series regression. The regression is based on the currency as the dependent variable and the commodities represent the covariates. Furthermore, a trading strategy is developed to see if a profit can be made on the foreign exchange market when looking at the commodity price movements. / Det här kandidatexamensarbetet är skrivet inom industriell ekonomi och tillämpad matematik och granskar termen råvaruvaluta (commodity currency). Uppsatsen analyserar, utifrån ett makroekonomiskt perspektiv, karaktärsdragen och konsekvenserna av en sådan valuta, samtidigt som den diskuterar tidigare studier inom ämnet. Delen inom tillämpad matematik undersöker korrelationen mellan valutan och råvarorna som landet exporterar genom en tidsserieregression. Regressionen är baserad på valutan som responsvariabel samtidigt som råvarorna representerar kovariaterna. Den färdiga modellen används sedan i en handelsstrategi som försöker förutspå växelkursens rörelser genom att titta på råvarornas rörelser.

This thesis analyses the extent to which a boom in a particular export commodity sector (i.e., oil) affects relative price of non-tradable goods against tradable goods, the real exchange rate and competitiveness in the rest of the economy: This problem has been analysed in the early stage by (Corden and Neary 1982) with the so-called ‘Dutch-disease’. As a result, booming sector (oil Sector) the country’s currency appreciates, thereby reducing the competitiveness of the country’s traditional export sector in international market. This thesis examines whether Dutch Disease is present in Iraq in the light of having not study about Dutch Disease phenomena. It evaluates the impact of growing oil revenues on non-oil sectors of the Iraqi economy. It produces some empirical evidence for the explanation non-tradable goods and contraction of tradable goods sector due to booming oil sector and appreciation real exchange rate and made tradable goods sector become uncompetitive for export. The main findings form this thesis that the Iraqi economy was subject to have the Dutch disease phenomena during the boom. Some of the indications of the disease, remarkably the increase of relative prices, the real exchange rate appreciation, contraction tradable goods sector and expansion of nontraded goods output were applicable. The study uses annual time series data sourced from home and international agencies from 1970 to 2013. Due to problem with endogeneity, the data are analysed through the use of two stages least square. Finally, the thesis discusses briefly some policy measures that will help avoid the issue of appreciation real exchange rate and changing the structure of economy out of tradable goods to non-tradable goods sector.

Bakgrund: Resursförbannelsen innebär att det finns ett negativt samband mellan mängden naturtillgångar och ekonomisk tillväxt. På grund av detta är det få resursrika länder som nått sin fulla potential. Tidigare forskning har mestadels bestått av ekonometriska modeller som bevisar detta negativa samband mellan naturresurser och ekonomisk tillväxt, vilket motiverat oss till att genomföra en kvalitativ analys.  Syfte: Syftet med denna uppsats är att genom en jämförelse av två likvärdiga länder analysera och förklara varför DR Kongo drabbats av resursförbannelsen medan Botswana undkom den. Uppsatsen syftar vidare till att jämföra utifrån tre ekonomiska teorier: holländska sjukan, rent seeking samt institutionell teori. Metod: För att uppnå syftet med uppsatsen används en komparativ metod. Länderna har valts utifrån deras likheter då både Botswana och DR Kongo befinner sig i Sub-Sahara Afrika, har en historia av kolonisering och är rika på mineraler. Metoden är lämplig vid jämförelse av länder. Därför är metoden motiverad att använda när vi jämför hur ett överflöd av naturresurser påverkar Botswanas och DR Kongos ekonomiska utveckling.  Slutsats: De i uppsatsen framkomna bevisen tyder på att DR Kongo har drabbats av resursförbannelsen eftersom vi kan se att holländska sjukan, rent seeking och svaga institutioner förekommer i landet. Alla dessa faktorer bidrar till resursförbannelsen. Till skillnad från Botswana som varken har drabbats av holländska sjukan eller rent seeking. Botswana har även haft stabila institutioner under lång tid. Slutsatsen vi drar är att institutioner är den viktigaste faktorn när det kommer till hur ett land kan undvika resursförbannelsen. / Background: The Resource Curse implies that there is a negative relation between the amount of natural resources and economic growth. Because of this few resource rich countries have reached their full potential. Previous research has mostly consisted of econometric models that prove this negative relation, which has pursued us to conduct a qualitative analysis.  Purpose: The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to compare two equivalent countries to analyze and explain why DR Congo has suffered from the Resource Curse while Botswana escaped it. The thesis further aims to compare based on three economic theories: Dutch disease, rent seeking and institutional theory.  Method: To achieve the purpose a comparative method is used. The countries have been chosen based on their similarities. Both Botswana and DR Congo are located in Sub-Saharan Africa, have a history of colonization and are rich in minerals. This method is appropriate for comparison of countries. Therefore this method is motivated to use when we compare how an abundance of natural resources affect Botswana’s and DR Congo’s economic growth.  Conclusion: The results from the thesis imply that DR Congo has suffered from the Resource Curse since Dutch disease, rent seeking and weak institutions exist in the country. All of these factors contribute to the Resource Curse. In comparison to Botswana who has not suffered from Dutch disease or rent seeking. Botswana has had strong institutions for a long time. Our conclusion is that institutions are the main element when it comes to escaping the Resource Curse.

Avec la croissance rapide de l’économie chinoise, les IDE chinois augmentent aussi très vite. De plus en plus études commencent à rechercher les déterminants et les impactes des IDE sortant chinois. Ce papier focalise sur les IDE chinois en Afrique, les motivations et les impactes en comparant avec les autres investissements du reste du monde. Plus intéressant, une étude de cas d’un projet chinois dans le secteur minier en Guinée va être présentée à la fin de la thèse au point de vue des investisseur chinois au niveau industriel et les implications politiques sont tirées à la base des résultats obtenus dans des parties empiriques au niveau macro. Le premier chapitre présente une situation générale du développement de l’IDE chinois et surtout celui en Afrique ; les deuxième et troisième parties sont les deux parties empiriques concernant les déterminants et les impactes de l’IDE chinois en Afrique ; et une étude de cas à la fin. / With rapid Chinese economic growth, the China’s foreign direct investment has as well grown very quickly. More and more studies focus on the determinants and impacts of Chinese outward FDI (OFDI). This thesis targets the Chinese OFDI in Africa, its investment motivations and the impacts to the African host countries compared with other investments from the rest of the world. More interestingly, a case study of a Chinese mining project in Guinea is well presented on the perspective of a Chinese investor’s point of view at industry micro level and the policy implications are drawn based on the empirical results gained from the former chapters at macro level. The first chapter presents the general situation of China’s OFDI, especially that in Africa; while the second and the third chapters are the two empirical parts of determinants and impacts studies; followed by a case study in the final chapter.