Date: 2 June 2015, 12:00 – 16:00
The last decade has been one of a natural resources boom for many Latin American countries, propping up economic growth and social spending in governments of all political persuasions. But while the high demand –and prices—for minerals, oil and other raw materials have provided a crucial stream of revenue, the extractive model has created, changed or exacerbated asymmetries of power, income and access to natural resources. The natural resources boom has also prompted a debate about the role of the state in collecting and redistributing rents, the relation between domestic laws and international capital, and the rights of local people versus the needs of the broader society.
The purpose of the colloquium is to foster this debate by inviting contributions that investigate the role of fiscal policy as an instrument that can shape (for better or for worse) inequalities related to the use and extraction of natural resources. We welcome papers that address one or several of the following questions:
– How has fiscal policy evolved over the last decade as a response to the commodities boom, both in terms of the collection of rents (e.g. corporate taxation vs. royalties) and their redistribution (e.g. social spending)?
– What has been the nature and scope of fiscal decentralization (e.g. regalías, canon minero, etc.) and what consequences has decentralization had on the effect of the natural resources boom?
– How do different political regimes constellations (e.g. partisanship, fragmentation, regime type) compare in terms of their results to decrease income or other forms of inequality? What positive lessons can be drawn?
– What are the implications of the extractive model for broader development questions (e.g. the “revenue trap”) and for environmental sustainability at the local and the national level?
The half-day event will feature the presentation of maximum 8 papers by doctoral students of German and other European Universities. The papers will be presented in two sessions, each of which will feature comments by a discussant, followed by debate.
Key information
– Where: DIE offices in Tulpenfeld 6, 53113 Bonn
– When: 2 June 2015, 12:00 – 16:00
– Deadlines: Submission of abstracts: May 4; submission of complete drafts (for papers selected for presentation): May 26. Please send abstracts to Alejandro.Guarin@die-gdi.de
– Costs: DIE will cover costs for lunch and refreshments. Travel and accommodation costs must be covered by participants.
– Organizer: German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) in the context of desiguALdades.net, a network of researchers from the Lateinamerika-Institut (LAI) of the Freie Universität Berlin, the Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut (IAI), and the German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA) studying interdependent inequalities in Latin America.