Oil-to-Cash Update

Dear Colleague,

Welcome to the first issue of the Oil-to-Cash Update! This occasional newsletter will track work by CGD and others on two major development trends: ideas for combatting the resource curse and the wave of experiments with cash transfers. CGD’s Oil-to-Cash initiative is a multi-year effort exploring the potential for citizen dividends to help deliver visible benefits, create public demand for accountability, and strengthen the social contract (for more, see my Oil-to-Cash working paper.) Interest in these ideas is growing, spurred in part by events like Iran’s introduction of transfers as part of a successful program to reduce subsidies for basic commodities, Nigeria’s troubled attempt to reduce fuel subsidies, and the news that countries like Afghanistan and Mozambique will likely be major resource exporters.

I plan to send a brief newsletter four to six times a year and I hope it will not only keep you informed but help to build a community of researchers and policy practitioners who are interested in pushing forward the debate about this promising set of policy interventions. I’m sending you our first issue because you have already indicated interest in these issues or closely related topics. If you would like to continue to receive these letters, please click here. If you have previously registered for CGD emails, please click the "Manage Subscriptions" link at the bottom of any received newsletter to update your subscription. Otherwise we will remove your name from the list.

We will do our best to keep track of this rapidly changing field but I hope you will send Stephanie Majerowicz a note if we miss something or you have feedback.

Best Wishes,

Todd Moss

PS: I have just recorded an interview on Lawrence MacDonald’s Wonkcast on Oil-to-Cash in which we discuss several of the papers and ideas described below. I invite you to listen and let me know what you think!

New Country Cases from Oil-to-Cash

Over the past several months, we have released country case studies, looking at the potential for citizen dividends in Iraq, the Niger Delta, and Equatorial Guinea. (Past studies on Ghana and Uganda are available on the main Oil-to-Cash page). In coming months we aim to release papers on Sierra Leone, Venezuela, and possibly Liberia, so watch this space. Our colleagues over at the Revenue Watch Institute are also poised to soon release studies on Bolivia, Timor Leste, and an analysis of Alaska’s experience with the Permanent Fund Dividend.
Image: UN Photo/V BIBIC

What’s the Dividends-Taxation Link?

One of the arguments in favor of regular cash transfers is that it can create positive incentives: for citizens to hold their governments accountable and for governments to broaden the tax base. To think through the taxation and accountability link in more detail, we asked our friends at the World Bank to look at the theory and the data. Shantayanan Devarajan, Hélène Ehrhart, Tuan Minh Le, and Gaël Raballand didn’t disappoint with this terrific paper.
Image: Flickr user images_of_money/ cc

Are Cash Transfers Too Trendy?

Cash transfers are spreading from Latin America across the globe. This raises serious questions about whether this is a meaningful shift in how the world fights poverty and promotes better governance—or whether it’s merely the latest fad among developmentistas. One optimistic sign is that, unlike so many past fads, cash transfers are being widely evaluated using cutting edge methods that can help to measure their effects. A brilliant meta-study of what we know can be found in this Cash Transfers Evidence Paper from DFID. One of the key questions for program designers is whether and how conditions matter. Lant Pritchett has an important insight into the dynamics of conditions, and how what we think about them is probably all wrong. Worth a read.
Image: Flickr user newbeatpicture/ cc