‘Oil and gas could make Lebanon worse’

Martin Skancke is among the world’s leading consultants on the resource curse, commonly called ‘Dutch Disease’, wherein countries that discover oil and gas subsequently see a loss of competitiveness in other sectors of their economy. He has advised countries across the globe from Cyprus, to Ghana, to East Timor on the best way to manage newfound resources. Executive asked him if Lebanon could avoid going Dutch. What are the most important steps to avoid wasting oil wealth? Number one is starting with institutions. If you want to have good management of petroleum wealth you need good, well-governed institutions to deal with that — on tax collection, on revenue management, on macroeconomic issues. Number two is thinking thoroughly about the macroeconomic impact of large and volatile petroleum revenues. It is easy to get carried away and think about the things you can do with oil money, but there has to be