Avoiding the Curse of the Oil-Rich Nations

NY Times: Oil-dependent countries, writes the Stanford professor Terry Karl, “eventually become among the most economically troubled, the most authoritarian, and the most conflict-ridden in the world.” This phenomenon is called the resource curse... Do these countries have a way out of the resource curse? ... Todd Moss, a senior fellow and vice president for programs at the Washington-based Center for Global Development, believes they might. He points to an unlikely source of inspiration: Alaska. The state of Alaska is bound by law to put at least a quarter of its revenues from oil into the Alaska Permanent Fund, which was established in 1976. The money is invested and each year, every resident of Alaska gets a share of the dividends; for consistency, the amount is calculated using an average of the fund’s earnings over the past five years. The dividend check is considered taxable income. Last year, the check was for $878. In 2008, the high point, every Alaskan got $2,069...