Optimal Dutch disease

Abstract

Growth models of the Dutch disease explain why resource abundance may reduce growth. The literature, however, also raises a new question: if the use of resource wealth hurts productivity growth, how should such wealth be optimally managed? This question forms the topic of the present paper. We show that the assumptions in the previous literature imply that the optimal share of national wealth consumed in each period needs to be adjusted down. Some Dutch disease, however, is always optimal. Thus, lower growth in resource-abundant countries may not be a problem in itself, but may be part of an optimal growth path. The optimal spending path of the resource wealth may be increasing or decreasing over time. What might be contrary to intuition is that the bigger is the growth generating traded sector, the more of the resource income should be spent in early periods.