Iraq is a country with exceptional natural resource wealth, but also consistent political turbulence manifested by high levels of state corruption, patronage networks, weak governance, poor institutional quality, civil unrest and sectarian conflict, all of which have undermined the sovereignty of its vast petroleum wealth and limited its potential for economic prosperity. As a mechanism for reducing the high levels of corruption and patronage networks as well as stimulating economic activity, this dissertation proposes the use of citizen-based direct distribution of oil revenues and studies the economic impacts of this policy using Social Accounting Matrix analysis. The methodology for this analysis includes testing the policy at different levels of per capita distribution, as well as with three variations in the design of the distribution programs. These variations include a universal cash transfer funded by oil revenue surpluses, a targeted cash transfer funded by oil revenue surpluses and a universal cash transfer funded by the reallocation of funding from the existing food subsidy system. The results illustrate that in each of the scenario variations, cash transfers are shown to have a significant positive impact on household incomes, producing activities and aggregate demand in the economy. The results also illustrate a net welfare gain to households when replacing the existing food subsidy system with cash transfers. In the comparison of distribution variations, targeted programs are shown to have the largest effect on the economy, primarily as lower-income households were allocated a greater proportion of income and subsequently also spend a greater proportion of their income on goods with lower leakages. Higher-income households, who are non-recipients in the targeted programs, benefit from targeted programs through the indirect/induced effects, which are largest in comparison to the other distribution variations. The results also show increased consumption on essential goods & services, primarily agricultural produce, which would ease concerns that cash transfers may generate increased consumption on non-essential/temptation goods.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uct/oai:localhost:11427/29484 |
| Date | 11 February 2019 |
| Creators | Moosajee, Muhammad Ali |
| Contributors | Edwards, Lawrence |
| Publisher | University of Cape Town, Faculty of Commerce, School of Economics |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Master Thesis, Masters, MCom |
| Format | application/pdf |
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