Abstract
Recent natural resource discoveries in Eastern Africa provide an opportunity to boost economic development. However, this opportunity brings with it potential challenges in the form of ‘Dutch disease’ and, potentially, the ‘resource curse’. A companion paper to this report: Managing Macroeconomic Risks Arising from Natural Resource Revenues in Developing Countries: A review of the Challenges for East Africa sets out the current state of thinking on the issues of Dutch disease, resource curse, the applicability of the permanent income hypothesis (PIH) in populous, developing economies and the impact of absorptive capacity constraints.
