Aid and Rent-Driven Growth: Mauritania, Kenya and Mozambique Compared

This paper conceptualises foreign aid as a geopolitical form of rent in order to help distinguish the conditions under which aid is detrimental to sustained economic recovery from those where it is beneficial. Foreign aid shares with natural resource rent and contrived (i.e., government monopoly) rent the property of being a large revenue stream that is detached from the economic activity that generates it, and elicits political contests for its capture. Rent-driven models suggest such contests have two adverse effects: (i) they deflect government incentives into rent-channelling at the expense of promoting wealth creation; and (ii) the resulting political allocation of the rent distorts the economy and precipitates a growth collapse, which is protracted. In this context, the three principal causes of aid failure identified in the literature (corruption, a poor policy environment and Dutch disease effects) are all symptoms of the destabilizing impact of rent streams on immature political economies. Consequently, the deployment of foreign aid to revive collapsed economies runs the risk of perpetuating rent-seeking and thereby postponing essential economic restructuring. This paper compares the varied impacts of aid on the development trajectories of Mauritania, Kenya and Mozambique. It argues ...Africa, aid, rent, resource curse, economic development

Patterns of Rent-Extraction and Deployment in Developing Countries: Implications for Governance, Economic Policy and Performance

natural resources, government incentives, development trajectory

Natural Resources, Development Models and Sustainable Development

This paper starts out from the optimistic assumption that the basic policies for environmental economic development are known but uncertainties surround the speed of their adoption. In many developing countries the key obstacle is poor governance: consequently, renewable resources continue to be mined, non-renewable resources are depleted irresponsibly, and reductions in pollution intensity lag. Recent research identifies resource abundance as an important cause of policy failure. This is because the primary sector remains large in relation to GDP so that differences in the scale of natural resource rents (and in their socio-economic linkages) condition macro policy in important ways. Most developing countries are resource-rich, a condition that engenders predatory political states that deploy resource rents in ways that cumulatively distort the economy so it falls into a staple trap, which undermines economic growth and environmentally sustainable policies. Sound macroeconomic policy is critical to the success of microeconomic measures like much of environmental policy, a fact often neglected by environmental reformers. There are two implications of this. First, in the long term, improved governance will enhance environmentally sustainable management of: renewable resources (by taking account of the total economic value of resources); finite resources (guided by the need to maintain genuine saving); and the global pollution sinks (by flattening the environmental Kuznets curve). Second, until such improvements occur, environmental policies are likely to underperform unless they are adapted to take account of flawed macro policies. Environmental reformers therefore need to support efforts by the international financial institutions to improve macroeconomic management.Environmental Economics and Policy, International Development, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Economía política de la distribución de los ingresos derivados de los minerales en África: análisis comparativo entre Angola, Botsuana, Nigeria y Zambia

La debilidad de las instituciones es identificada por investigaciones recientes como la principal causa del bajo rendimiento de las economías de los países en desarrollo. Pero las instituciones de los países de bajo ingreso, más que moldear los incentivos políticos, son un reflejo de estos últimos. Por consiguiente, el presente documento analiza el modo en que se esbozan dichos incentivos políticos a través de los ingresos basados en las materias primas. Se centra en los flujos de la renta derivada de dichos productos, como vínculo fundamental entre la economía y la política, y se basa en casos concretos a efectos de seguir la trayectoria de aquéllos (mientras que los estudios estadísticos toman la renta como una caja negra). Dichos casos se fundamentan en la teoría del ciclo de la renta, que postula que: (1) con rentas elevadas los incentivos estatales se desvían de la creación de riqueza hacia un ciclo de “clientelismo político” que corrompe la economía, reduce la eficacia de la inversión y ocasiona un colapso en el crecimiento; (2) la recuperación de un colapso es más lenta debido a la inercia del ciclo de la renta; y (3) las repercusiones negativas de las rentas elevadas quedan intensificadas cuando la renta se encuentra (a) concentrada en los Gobiernos (tal y como ocurre con la minería), (b) destinada a una ideología estatalista o (c) asociada a la diversidad étnica. El estudio utiliza el exitoso ciclo de la renta en Botsuana para analizar los motivos de su fracaso en Zambia, Nigeria y Angola. No sólo atribuye la exitosa gestión de un amplio y concentrado caudal de ingresos de Botsuana a la homogeneidad étnica y al rechazo de políticas estatalistas, sino también a sus incentivos por la prudencia debidos a su dependencia particularmente precaria en lo que respecta a los recursos minerales, así como a la imprevista estabilidad de los precios de los diamantes. Por el contrario, el despreocupado Gobierno de Zambia distribuyó los ingresos derivados del cobre a través de una estrategia de desarrollo estatalista que en el plazo de una década minó con fatales consecuencias la resistencia de la economía frente a los choques económicos. Nigeria dedicó sus crecientes ingresos petroleros a mitigar los conflictos étnicos y, por consiguiente, aplicó un excesivo intervencionismo estatal y debilitó la economía. Por último, Angola quebrantó su economía a través de su planificación centralista. Los conflictos étnicos aminoraron así la esperanza de vida de las elites e impulsó la captación de ingresos a expensas de la creación de riqueza. Las vacilantes recuperaciones de Zambia y Nigeria indican que incluso en el seno de las democracias se requiere una estrategia política complementaria si se pretende superar la inercia del ciclo de la renta a través de reforma económicas

Links between Resource Extraction, Governance and Development: African Experience

This ARI addresses the analytical and empirical links between resource extraction, governance and development, with a focus on the resource-curse thesis. The rent curse is rooted in policy failure, which the theory of rent cycling attributes to the impact of rent on elite incentives and also on development trajectory. The paper provides some examples of conditions that have facilitated this process in the context of Sub-Saharan Africa. The so-called resource curse is part of a broader rent curse that can be triggered by regulatory rent and foreign aid (geopolitical rent) as well as by natural resource rent. Although resource-driven growth challenges macro management due in part to commodity price volatility, the policies required to limit adverse impacts such as the Dutch disease effects are well known. Consequently, the rent curse is rooted in policy failure, which the theory of rent cycling attributes to the impact of rent on elite incentives and also the development trajectory. The theory argues that high rent incentivises the elite to deploy rent through patronage channels for immediate personal enrichment, but this represses markets and distorts the economy, which lowers investment efficiency and triggers a growth collapse that is protracted because rent recipients resist economic reform. The risk of the economy falling into this ‘staple trap’ development trajectory increases in the presence of point source resources (notably minerals), statist policies, ethnic tension and democracy that is youthful. This implies that initial conditions were unpropitious for most African countries (especially the mineral economies) at independence because they were typically ethnically-mixed, resource-rich, new democracies with a predilection for fashionable state control. Most African economies did experience protracted growth collapses from the 1970s but some, like the Ivory Coast and Kenya collapsed later than most. Just two economies, Botswana and Mauritius, evaded the curse. Botswana’s conditions appear unique but Mauritius’s pursuit of a dual-track growth strategy offers a useful model for other African governments

Natural resources and small island economies:Mauritius and Trinidad and Tobago

Historically, small economies, especially resource-rich ones, underperformed on average relative to their larger counterparts. Small island economies appear still more disadvantaged due to remoteness from both markets and agglomeration economies. Yet a comparison of two small island economies with similar initial conditions other than their mineral endowment suggests that policy outweighs size, isolation and resource endowment in determining economic performance. Resource-poor Mauritius adopted an unfashionable policy of export manufacturing that systematically eliminated surplus labour, which drove economic diversification that sustained rapid GDP growth and political maturation. Like most resource-rich economies, Trinidad and Tobago pursued policies that absorbed rent too rapidly, which impeded diversification and created an illusory prosperity vulnerable to collapse

Effects of depleting ionic strength on 31P nuclear magnetic resonance spectra of micellar casein during membrane separation and diafiltration of skim milk

peer-reviewedMembrane separation processes used in the concentration and isolation of micellar casein-based milk proteins from skim milk rely on extensive permeation of its soluble serum constituents, especially lactose and minerals. Whereas extensive literature exists on how these processes influence the gross composition of milk proteins, we have little understanding of the effects of such ionic depletion on the core structural unit of micellar casein [i.e., the casein phosphate nanocluster (CPN)]. The 31P nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is an analytical technique that is capable of identifying soluble and organic forms of phosphate in milk. Thus, our objective was to investigate changes to the 31P NMR spectra of skim milk during microfiltration (MF) and diafiltration (DF) by tracking movements in different species of phosphate. In particular, we examined the peak at 1.11 ppm corresponding to inorganic phosphate in the serum, as well as the low-intensity broad signal between 1.5 and 3.0 ppm attributed to casein-associated phosphate in the retentate. The MF concentration and DF using water caused a shift in the relevant 31P NMR peak that could be minimized if orthophosphate was added to the DF water. However, this did not resolve the simultaneous change in retentate pH and increased solubilization of micellar casein protein. The addition of calcium in combination with orthophosphate prevented micellar casein solubilization and simultaneously contributed to preservation of the CPN structure, except for overcorrection of retentate pH in the acidic direction. A more complex DF solution, involving a combination of phosphate, calcium, and citrate, succeeded in both CPN and micellar casein structure preservation while maintaining retentate pH in the region of the original milk pH. The combination of 31P NMR as an analytical technique and experimental probe during MF/DF processes provided useful insights into changes occurring to CPN while retaining the micellar state of casein

Trypanosome diversity in wildlife species from the Serengeti and Luangwa Valley ecosystems

<p>Background: The importance of wildlife as reservoirs of African trypanosomes pathogenic to man and livestock is well recognised. While new species of trypanosomes and their variants have been identified in tsetse populations, our knowledge of trypanosome species that are circulating in wildlife populations and their genetic diversity is limited.</p> <p>Methodology/Principal Findings: Molecular phylogenetic methods were used to examine the genetic diversity and species composition of trypanosomes circulating in wildlife from two ecosystems that exhibit high host species diversity: the Serengeti in Tanzania and the Luangwa Valley in Zambia. Phylogenetic relationships were assessed by alignment of partial 18S, 5.8S and 28S trypanosomal nuclear ribosomal DNA array sequences within the Trypanosomatidae and using ITS1, 5.8S and ITS2 for more detailed analysis of the T. vivax clade. In addition to Trypanosoma brucei, T. congolense, T. simiae, T. simiae (Tsavo), T. godfreyi and T. theileri, three variants of T. vivax were identified from three different wildlife species within one ecosystem, including sequences from trypanosomes from a giraffe and a waterbuck that differed from all published sequences and from each other, and did not amplify with conventional primers for T. vivax.</p> <p>Conclusions/Significance: Wildlife carries a wide range of trypanosome species. The failure of the diverse T. vivax in this study to amplify with conventional primers suggests that T. vivax may have been under-diagnosed in Tanzania. Since conventional species-specific primers may not amplify all trypanosomes of interest, the use of ITS PCR primers followed by sequencing is a valuable approach to investigate diversity of trypanosome infections in wildlife; amplification of sequences outside the T. brucei clade raises concerns regarding ITS primer specificity for wildlife samples if sequence confirmation is not also undertaken.</p&gt

Rvb1p and Rvb2p are essential components of a chromatin remodeling complex that regulates transcription of over 5% of yeast genes

Eukaryotic Rvb1p and Rvb2p are two highly conserved proteins related to the helicase subset of the AAA+ family of ATPases. Conditional mutants in both genes show rapid changes in the transcription of over 5% of yeast genes, with a similar number of genes being repressed and activated. Both Rvb1p and Rvb2p are required for maintaining the induced state of many inducible promoters. ATP binding and hydrolysis by Rvb1p and Rvb2p is individually essential in vivo and the two proteins are associated with each other in a high molecular weight complex that shows ATP-dependent chromatin remodeling activity in vitro. Our findings show that Rvb1p and Rvb2p are essential components of a chromatin remodeling complex and determine genes regulated by the complex