Ragnar Torvik

Natural resources, rent seeking and welfare

Abstract A new and very simple mechanism to explain why natural resource abundance may lower income and welfare is developed. In a model with rent seeking, a greater amount of natural resources increases the number of entrepreneurs engaged in rent seeking and reduces the number of entrepreneurs running productive firms. With a demand externality, it is shown that the drop in income as a result of this is higher than the increase in income from the natural resource. More natural resources thus lead to lower welfare.

Learning by doing and the Dutch disease

This paper develops a model of learning by doing and the Dutch disease that extends the earlier literature in two ways. First, it is assumed that both the traded and the non-traded sector can contribute to learning. Second, it is assumed that there are learning spillovers between the sectors. It is shown that within such a model a foreign exchange gift results in a real exchange rate depreciation in the long run, due to a shift in the steady-state relative productivity between the traded and the non-traded sector. In contrast to standard models of the Dutch disease, production and productivity in both sectors may go up or down. The conditions for the different cases are worked out.

Cursed by Resources or Institutions

Natural resource abundant countries constitute both growth losers and growth winners, and the main difference between the success cases and the cases of failure lays in the quality of institutions. With grabber friendly institutions more natural resources push aggregate income down, while with producer friendly institutions more natural resources increase income. Such a theory finds strong support in data. A key question we also discuss is if resources in addition alter the quality of institutions. When that is the case, countries with bad institutions suffer a double resource curse - as the deterioration of institutions strenghtens the negative effect of more natural resources.

A Theory of Civil Conflict and Democracy in Rentier States

The effects of resource rents on the political equilibrium have been studied in two main types of models. The first tradition uses models of conflict, and studies how resource rents affect the intensity and duration of civil conflict. The second tradition uses political economy models, where resource rents affect the political equilibrium due to changes in the costs and benefits of buying votes. Although they provide considerable insight, these traditions have little to say about when democracy emerges, and about when conflict emerges. In this paper, by integrating the earlier model traditions, we suggest the simplest possible framework we can think of to study the choice between conflict and democracy. We show how factors such as resource rents, the extent of electoral competition, and productivity affect economic and political equilibria.

Short-Run Consequences of Trade Liberalization: A Computable General Equilibrium Model of Zimbabwe

Abstract The elimination of import controls represents a challenging adjustment process for any economy. The mechanisms are investigated by the use of an economy-wide model of Zimbabwe. A benchmark version assumes import rationing and protection of domestic markets in an economy with unemployment of unskilled labor. Rather than modeling trade liberalization as a decrease in tariffs, we view it as a regime shift, requiring a new model closure. Compared with previous computable general equilibrium studies of trade liberalization, the analyses includes two expansionary channels, intermediate imports and savings response. It is shown that a combined consumption boom, short-run contraction, and growing trade deficit are likely, due to drop of savings and demand switching to foreign goods.

Mineral Rents and Social Development in Norway

Norway is often referred to as the prime example of a country that has achieved high growth and low income inequality despite its vast natural resources. This contrasts sharply with many other resource abundant countries, which raises the questions why Norway has succeeded while many other resource abundant countries have not. That is the topic of this paper. To make progress we first need to find out along which dimensions Norway differs from resource abundant countries with a less favorable development. Thereafter we turn to a more detailed description and investigation of the policies adopted in Norway, and discuss if there are lessons to be learned for other resource abundant countries.

Talent, Growth and Income Distribution

A model with heterogeneous individuals and bequests between generations is constructed to analyze income distribution and educational choice. The introduction of an imperfection in the credit market is shown to influence the allocation of talent. Both ability and bequest are of relevance in deciding whether or not to invest in education. With learning by doing between generations, the allocation of talent affects not only the level of production but also the growth rate. Copyright 1993 by The editors of the Scandinavian Journal of Economics.

Interactions between Agriculture and Industry: Theoretical Analysis of the Consequences of Discriminating Agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa

Many countries in sub-Saharan Africa discriminated against agriculture to promote industry after independence. The domestic terms of trade were turned against agriculture by the price fixing of monopoly marketing boards. This policy was assumed to reduce labor costs of industry and was combined with overvaluation of the currency, protectionism, and priority rationing of imported inputs to industry. The region got the worst of both worlds—stagnation in both agriculture and industry. What went wrong? In a dual model designed to represent characteristics of the region, discrimination of agriculture is shown to contract industry through trade linkages. Export-oriented agriculture has been held back, and import-dependent industries have suffered because of the foreign exchange constraint. In a dynamic extension assuming learning-by-doing in industry and catching-up in agriculture, it is shown that discrimination against agriculture may reduce the growth rate of the economy and the technological advantage of industry. Copyright Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2003

When is Democracy an Equilibrium? Theory and Evidence from Colombia’s La Violencia

The conventional wisdom is that for a democracy to be consolidated, all groups must have a chance to attain power. If they do not, then they will subvert democracy and choose to fight for power. In this article, the authors show that this wisdom is seriously incomplete because it considers absolute, not relative payoffs. Although the probability of winning an election increases with the size of a group, so does the probability of winning an armed conflict. Thus, in a situation in which all groups have a high chance of winning an election, they may also have a high chance of winning a fight. Indeed, in a natural model, the authors show that democracy may never be consolidated in such a situation. Rather, democracy may only be stable when one group is dominant. The authors explore this key aspect of the theory using data from La Violencia, a political conflict in Colombia during the years 1946—1950 between the Liberal and Conservative parties. Consistent with their results, and contrary to conventional wisdom, the authors show that fighting between the parties was more intense in municipalities where the support of the parties was more evenly balanced.

Time Inconsistency and the Exchange Rate Channel of Monetary Policy

This paper analyses time-inconsistency problems related to the exchange rate channel of monetary policy. Within a simple open-economy macroeconomic model, where the exchange rate is the only forward-looking variable, we show that a difference emerges between optimal policy under discretion and under commitment. Moreover, the nature of the time-inconsistency problem resembles that resulting from standard New Keynesian models: when cost-push shocks occur, the exchange rate channel gives rise to excessive output stabilisation and insufficient inertia in monetary policy under a discretionary policy.