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Oxford Economic Papers Advance Access originally published online on July 29, 2009
Oxford Economic Papers 2009 61(4):703-726; doi:10.1093/oep/gpp026
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© Oxford University Press 2009 All rights reserved

This article appears in the following Oxford Economic Papers issue: Symposium on Resource Rich Economies [View the issue table of contents]

Structural policies for shock-prone developing countries

Paul Collier* and Benedikt Goderis{dagger}

*Centre for the Study of African Economies, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, Manor Road, Oxford OX1 3UQ; e-mail: Paul.Collier{at}economics.ox.ac.uk
{dagger}Department of Economics, University of Oxford, Manor Road, Oxford OX1 3UQ; e-mail: Benedikt.Goderis{at}economics.ox.ac.uk

JEL classifications: O47, Q38, Q54


  Abstract

Developing countries frequently face large adverse shocks to their economies. We study two distinct types of such shocks: large declines in the price of a country's commodity exports and severe natural disasters. Unsurprisingly, adverse shocks reduce the short-term growth of constant-price GDP and we analyse which structural policies help to minimize these losses. Structural policies are incentives and regulations that are maintained for long periods, contrasting with policy responses to shocks, the analysis of which has dominated the literature. We show that some previously neglected structural policies have large effects that are specific to particular types of shock. In particular, regulations which reduce the speed of firm exit substantially increase the short-term growth loss from adverse non-agricultural export price shocks and so are particularly ill-suited to mineral exporting economies. Natural disasters appear to be better accommodated by labour market policies, perhaps because such shocks directly dislocate the population.


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