John Page on natural resources and industrialization

On 30 November, John Page will give a presentation on natural resources and industrialization at an event co-organized by UONGOZI and UNU-WIDER at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.

This event is part of a series of lectures delivered by Brookings Institution Senior Fellow and UNU-WIDER Non-Resident Senior Research Fellow, John Page, on industrialization in Africa. The series is based on a decade of work by UNU-WIDER inspired by three questions: why is there so little industry in Africa? Does it matter? What can be done about it?

The lectures are filmed and will form part of an internationally produced MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) to be released be UNU-WIDER alongside a documentary in 2019. The landmark series includes lectures at the United Nations Industrial Development Organization in New York, the African Economic Research Consortium in Nairobi, the Department for International Development and the London School of Economics in London, and UNU-WIDER in Helsinki.

The MOOC is part of the UNU-WIDER project, in partnership with the Brookings Institute on Jobs, poverty and structural change in Africa.

Lecture: Natural resources and industrialization – can gas jump-start structural change?

Abstract:

The exploitation of natural resources is a huge opportunity, but it also carries considerable risks. One such risk lies in the structure of resource-abundant countries themselves. Relative prices in resource-exporting economies tend to push them toward economic structures where a high share of output is concentrated in the resource sector and non-tradable services. Economic structure matters because greater diversity in production and exports is associated globally with more rapid growth. This lecture considers the challenge of diversification in resource-abundant economies.