RWI Stanford Fellowship

As a continuation of a 2005 research project assessing the ability of oil-dependent producer states to turn oil wealth into widespread social and economic development, RWI is sponsoring an extended fellowship on natural resource governance at Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL).

In addition to creating a database compiled from the relevant performance metrics in producer states, the project will produce case studies on estimating the magnitude of oil rents, price differentials and geophysical and geologically determined differences in production costs. Policy papers will be presented that summarize the methodology, key findings and policy implications for the activist community.

Despite increased attention to the resource curse, there are virtually no studies that analyze or explain the myriad differences we can observe among natural resource dependent states. To understand the variations in governance performance and assess the political effectiveness of international efforts like EITI, an in-depth examination of political economy in these states is required. The Stanford research will offer a systematized comparison between petro-states' performance in revenue generation, revenue management, and revenue disbursement that will give policymakers, advocates and others targeted publications, training materials and increased capacity.