Abstract

Oil revenue stabilization funds provide short-run protection against oil revenue fluctuations – in the way that Saudi government deposits and reserve at the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA) have historically served as a buffer to decouple government budget from oil revenue fluctuations. By contrast, sovereign wealth funds create income for future generations to replace revenue streams from depletable resources – one of the purposes of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. We developed a framework for optimizing policies for adding to and withdrawing from stabilization funds, which we apply to Saudi Arabia as a case study based on publicly available data. The quantitative results are sensitive to the specific assumptions on the likelihood of particular oil prices arising but the overall results are robust to a wide range of assumptions.

Authors

Nader AlKathiri

Research Fellow Nader is a research fellow at KAPSARC. His research interests include development economics, economic modeling, and natural resource economics. He leads… Nader is a research fellow at KAPSARC. His research interests include development economics, economic modeling, and natural resource economics. He leads a project exploring the role of sovereign wealth funds in promoting economic diversification in oil-dependent economies. Nader holds a B.Sc. in operations research, an M.Sc. in applied mathematics and computational science, and an MBA in finance.

Expertise

  • Sovereign wealth funds; natural resource economics; economic modeling

Publications See all Nader AlKathiri’s publications

Frederic Murphy

Frederic Murphy

Visiting Researcher Frederic is professor emeritus, Fox School of Business, Temple University, where he taught for 30 years. He was a visiting… Frederic is professor emeritus, Fox School of Business, Temple University, where he taught for 30 years. He was a visiting researcher fellow at KAPSARC where he is participating in the development of energy models and writing policy analyses in a range of areas, including domestic energy use in Saudi Arabia, market power in world oil markets, designing and managing income stabilization funds, and China's and India's energy economies. He works mainly in the area of energy-market forecasting and energy policy analysis. Prior to joining Temple, he was at the Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the U.S. Department of Energy and its predecessor, the Federal Energy Administration, where he headed the group that did the economic impact analyses of the bills and laws passed during the Carter administration and developed and ran the forecasting models then used for policy analyses and the forecasts in the EIA Annual Report. He has authored over 100 refereed articles. In one study he was ranked in the 20 most published researchers in his field over a fifty-year span. He was the editor in chief of the journal Interfaces, an area editor for Operations Research, and the Informs Journal on computing, and the Vice President of Publications for INFORMS and its predecessor society, Operations Research Society of America. He has been involved in studying local economic policy issues, including advising the Tax Reform Commission of the City of Philadelphia, estimating the impact on jobs of building casinos in Philadelphia, and political redistricting. He also did a queueing study oil tank vessels on the Delaware River.

Axel Pierru

Program Director Axel is the director of KAPSARC’s Energy and Macroeconomics program. From October 2018 to March 2019, he was KAPSARC’s interim… Axel is the director of KAPSARC's Energy and Macroeconomics program. From October 2018 to March 2019, he was KAPSARC's interim vice president of research. Axel joined KAPSARC in 2011, after spending 15 years at IFP Energies Nouvelles in France, where he led research, consulting and training projects. Axel received his Ph.D. in economics from the Pantheon-Sorbonne University in Paris. He undertakes applied research that combines methodological innovation with practical relevance for policymaking. His research is focused on energy economics, policy, finance, oil pricing, and energy-exporting economies. Axel has been published extensively, with over 40 peer-reviewed journal papers to his name.

Expertise

  • Energy modelling
  • Energy economics
  • Energy policy
  • Oil pricing and finance

Publications See all Axel Pierru’s publications

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