Natural Resource Discoveries, Citizen Expectations and Household Decisions
Major oil and gas discoveries are often associated with excitement and jubilation among citizens and government officials. But the extent to which discoveries substantially alter citizen expectations about economic conditions in a country remains a...
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| Language: | English |
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2020
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/796881598889032254/Natural-Resource-Discoveries-Citizen-Expectations-and-Household-Decisions http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34420 |
| Summary: | Major oil and gas discoveries are often
associated with excitement and jubilation among citizens and
government officials. But the extent to which discoveries
substantially alter citizen expectations about economic
conditions in a country remains an open question. The paper
combines Afrobarometer data on household expectations on
economic conditions and living standards with the
announcement of oil and gas discoveries in Africa to
estimate the effect of discoveries on expectations. The
identification strategy exploits plausibly exogenous
variation in the timing of discoveries relative to the
rollout of survey interviews. The study find that
discoveries increase expectations of better economic
conditions and living standards by 35 and 52 percent
respectively. Further, the paper finds that the overall
expectations boom effect pertains only to countries with
weaker institutions. The paper also provides evidence that
households incorporate these expectations into their
migration and fertility decisions, with fewer applications
in the short run to the U.S. green card lottery and
increased childbirth following discovery announcements. |
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