Economic diversification remains at the top of the agenda for hundreds of regions around the world: from the single commodity economies of African countries and the Caribbean to the many single industry regions of Europe and North America, and to the oil and gas rich but volatile hydrocarbon economies. The recent oil price slide has served as another wake-up call for many and has brought to the fore the economic diversification agenda in many natural resource-rich countries. Economic diversification policies have been around for almost a century with varying degrees of success and failure but there have been very few attempts to systematically analyse those policies.
In that respect, this book is a timely collection of in-depth analyses of diversification away from natural resources at a time when natural resource economies are going through a ‘bust’ period. This book takes a special interest in the policy experiences of a set of countries that have in common that the extractive industries represent significant drivers of their economies and subsequently are significant contributors to government revenues. It explores twelve cases including upper- middle to high income economies such as Alberta, Australia, Iceland and Norway, emerging economies such as Chile, the GCC (Oman, Saudi, and UAE), Kazakhstan, Malaysia and Russia, as well as the developing economy of Botswana. Each chapter provides a review of economic diversification experiences including policy environment, diversification strategies, desired outcomes, the role of government, and a critical evaluation of achievements.
