Ample natural resource revenues create both opportunities and challenges for a sovereign to transform its natural resources into well-managed financial assets. Hence, inter-temporal smoothing of revenue and consumption/investment moves to the center stage of macroeconomic policies. The questions arising from natural resource wealth accumulation are becoming more pressing for many countries, given the need to achieve intergenerational equity in a context where commodity prices may not continue their upward trajectory of the past decade. Addressing these questions requires a flexible sovereign asset-liability management (SALM) framework that integrates various macroeconomic and financial trade-offs with the aim of containing financial risk to the sovereign balance sheet. The framework and policy advice aims to guide policymakers across different institutions in weighing those trade-offs.

Oil exporters in the Middle East and North Africa, Afghanistan, and Pakistan region (MENAP) are continuing to adjust to lower oil prices, which have dampened growth and contributed to large fiscal and external deficits.

This paper presents an overview of Botswana’s economy. Botswana’s diamond endowment—along with its track record of good macroeconomic policy management and political stability—contributed to high average economic growth and strong fiscal and balance-of-payments positions in recent years. Despite these achievements, Botswana faces unemployment, water and electricity shortages, and inefficiency of government operations. These challenges need to be addressed. Real GDP growth is estimated to be negative in 2015 owing to a decrease in global demand for diamonds and a deceleration of activity in the non-mining sector. However, the economy is expected to recover gradually in next three years driven by a gradual pick up in diamond prices and fiscal stimulus.

Economic Citizenship Programs (ECPs) have recently been proliferating, with large and potentially volatile inflows of investment and fiscal revenues generating significant benefits for small economies, but also posing substantial challenges. This paper discusses recent developments and implications of such programs for fiscal discipline and the real economy, including risks to macroeconomic and financial stability, with a focus on small state economies. It discusses the prudent management of these programs, overviews strategies to minimize risks to various sectors, and addresses potential governance and integrity challenges. The paper proposes a framework for managing inflows and savings from ECPs to contain macroeconomic risks, and it recommends the establishment of a sovereign wealth fund (SWF) where such revenues are large and persistent.

The extractive industries (EI) sector occupies an outsize space in the economies of many developing countries. Policy makers, economists, and public finance professionals working in such countries are frequently confronted with issues that require an in-depth understanding of the sector, its economics, governance, and policy challenges, as well as the implications of natural resource wealth for fiscal and public financial management. The objective of the two-volume Essentials for Economists, Public Finance Professionals, and Policy Makers, published in the World Bank Studies series, is to provide a concise overview of the EI-related topics these professionals are likely to encounter. This second volume, Fiscal Management in Resource-Rich Countries, addresses critical fiscal challenges typically associated with large revenue flows from the EI sector. The volume discusses fiscal policy across four related dimensions: short-run stabilization, the management of fiscal risks and vulnerabilities, the promotion of long-term sustainability, and the importance of good public financial management and public investment management systems. The volume subsequently examines several institutional mechanisms used to aid fiscal management, including medium-term expenditure frameworks, resource funds, fiscal rules, and fiscal councils. The volume also discusses the earmarking of revenue, resource revenue projections as applied to the government budget, and fiscal transparency, and outlines several fiscal indicators used to assess the fiscal stance of resource-rich countries. The authors hope that economists, public finance professionals, and policy makers working in resource-rich countries—including decision makers in ministries of finance, international organizations, and other relevant entities—will find the volume useful to their understanding and analysis of fiscal management in resource-rich countries.

Commodity-based sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) have been at a crossroads following the recent fall in commodity prices. This paper provides a framework for commodity-based SWF management, focusing on stabilization and savings funds, by (i) examining macrofiscal linkages for SWFs; (ii) presenting an integrated sovereign asset and liability management (SALM) approach to SWF management; and (iii) applying this framework to a scenario where assets are being accumulated and to a scenario where the SWF is drawn on to cover a financing gap due to lower commodity prices.

This issue of the Fiscal Monitor examines the conduct of fiscal policy under the uncertainty caused by dependence on natural resource revenues. It draws on extensive past research on the behavior of commodity prices and their implications for macroeconomic outcomes, as well as on extensive IMF technical assistance to resource-rich economies seeking to improve their management of natural resource wealth.

Why are some nations wealthy and others poor? How did the wealthy nations become rich? What are the components of wealth? How should nations manage their wealth for the future? These are among the most important questions in economics. They are also impossible to answer without defining wealth, and understanding how it can be created, destroyed, stored, and managed. National Wealth: What is Missing, Why it Matters assembles a collection of high-quality contributions to define the key concepts and address the economic and policy issues around national wealth. It considers insights from economic history, addresses the impacts of the changes to national accounting, and teases out the policy implications for both rich and poor countries and the institutions within them. Using expert analysis and theory backed by empirical work, this book evaluates the progress that has been made in measuring national wealth, as well as the recent developments in theory and practice which tell us that the change in real wealth (net saving) is an essential indicator of economic progress. Net national saving, measured comprehensively and adjusted to reflect the investment in and the depreciation of the full range of assets measured in national wealth, is an indicator of the change in future wellbeing. Governments can use this measure to answer a fundamental question: How much does the stream of future wellbeing of the population rise or fall as a result of policy actions today? The book is organized into four parts. Part one provides the political context and defines the key concepts. Part two examines the history of wealth creation and destruction. Part three provides a more detailed analysis of the individual components of wealth, and finally, part four examines the lessons for managing wealth for sustainable national prosperity.

The book covers a wide range of topics of relevance to policymakers in countries that have sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) and those that receive SWF investments. Renowned experts in the field have contributed chapters. The book is organized around four themes: (1) the role and macrofinancial linkages of SWFs, (2) institutional factors, (3) investment approaches and financial markets, and (4) the postcrisis outlook. The book also discusses the challenges facing sovereign wealth funds in the coming years, from an inside perspective on countries, including Canada, Chile, China, Norway, Russia, and New Zealand. Economics of Sovereign Wealth Funds will contribute to a further understanding of the nature, strategies and behavior of SWFs and the environment in which they operate, as their importance is likely to grow in the coming years.

This report is intended to help policy makers, law enforcement officials and stakeholders strengthen prevention efforts at both the public and private levels, through improved understanding and enhanced awareness of corruption risk and mechanisms.