Todd Moss and Arvind Subramanian were quoted in a CNN article on the oil resource curse in Libya.
From the Article
In the aftermath of the 42-year rule of Moammar Gadhafi, the world is left wondering whether the bloodiest conflict in the popular unrest that has swept the Arab World will signal the rise of democracy in Libya or a descent into chaos.
A group of economists is proposing one solution to help a strong Libya emerge from the smoldering ruins of civil war: Give all Libyans direct annual payments from oil revenue.
Call it the 'Alaska solution.'
"In 1982 then-governor Jay Hammond of Alaska said, 'Look, there is no check or balance on our use (of state oil revenue)," said Todd Moss, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington. Hammond started a program to give residents annual checks from the state's petroleum fund. "That held Hammond and all his successors into account." Economy expanding in Mongolia Rebels anxious to avoid bloodshed
Libya is a textbook example, Moss said, of what is known as the "resource curse" - countries whose economies depend on oil, gas or other natural resource exports. It's sometimes known as "the paradox of plenty" - rather than create an economic boom, export cash from resource-rich nations often flows directly to corrupt leaders while most the population doesn't share in the wealth.
How to handle a sudden burst in commodity wealth is an issue that echoes around the globe, from the huge copper and coal mines plumbed in Mongolia, to the offshore gas fields in Ghana and vast tracts of lithium deposits in the Andes Mountains of Bolivia.
"Of course you have corruption, but I think the key thing about understanding how the resource curse works is it impedes economic and political development," said Arvind Subramanian, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute of International Economics in Washington.