Perhaps —no, undoubtedly — only the World Bank would host an event to discuss the fiscal systems different countries have to divide oil and gas revenue. The conference, held in Washington DC by the Bank’s Oil, Gas and Mining division, concludes today.
While some systems are unitary (like, on balance, Indonesia), many today are federal. Fiscal federalism refers to the policies and division of the money between national, state/province/etc, and local levels. Since in most countries the government owns all subsurface rights (the US is an exception), the revenue from oil and gas has to be divvied up somehow. Does it first go to the federal government who, hopefully, will send back an agreed-to percentage? Does it automatically get shared? How is apportioned out? Who sets the taxes? Who oversees projects?
This is the mid-level minutia of mid-level policy makers and bureaucrats, and yet it is the determinant of taxation, revenue apportionment, policy implementation, expenditures, and how happy everyone will be.
Since this is the World Bank, the ten papers on various countries (Pakistan, Australia, India, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Russia, Canada, Nigeria, and the US) are often impressive technically (sometimes too technically) without giving a lot of feeling for how well each approach actually works or if the system is actually works in a positive way on general development or impact on the population. The paper on Pakistan, for example, makes mention of the violence and tension felt in Baluchistan and Sindh in only the most general way. But if you are interested in how oil and gas revenue works in different countries, it is hard to see where else you could get this level of information.
The conference included speakers/papers on general issues, such as conflict and ownership of natural resources (very interesting), commodity dependence and pricing after the crash (very informational).
I refrain from the nitty gritty — I realize it can be a snooze for most —although I will say I learned much more from the paper about US leasing on public lands than I did from the Bureau of Land Management website. If you are so inclined, the conferences papers can be found at:
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTOGMC/0,,contentMDK:22452146~pagePK:210058~piPK:210062~theSitePK:336930~isCURL:Y,00.html
