Author Description

This book is the first cross-country analysis of resource-based industrialization (RBI), a controversial industrialization strategy favored by developing countries in the 1970s. It examines the expectations and the actual experience of RBI in the oil-exporting countries Bahrain, Cameroon, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Trinidad and Tobago, and Venezuela. Auty shows that these countries underestimated the risks associated with RBI's large capital-intensive projects and that many RBI plants were poorly implemented and became uncompetitive when prices fell below forecast levels. However, Auty argues, given its long gestation period and link to volatile energy markets, RBI does have considerable long-term potential provided conditions of financial restructuring and macro- and micro-economic efficiency are met. Scholars and students in development economics, and advisers and consultants in and to developing-country governments will find this important analysis covers a variety of country sizes and efficiency constraints, offering a broad range of examples of RBI.