Petróleo, Iraque, e um povo livre
O Prêmio Nobel de Economia de 2003, Vernon Smith, neste artigo, trata de um problema que já tentei discutir aqui antes - sem sucesso: o da alocação de petróleo num Iraque pós-ditadura.
Sound too pie-in-the-sky for a country that has been deprived of working financial markets for decades? Not really, thanks to a clever idea put forward by economists Terry Anderson and Vernon Smith (who won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2002), and statistician Emily Simmons. In a paper written for the Cato Institute in 1999, the authors outlined a scheme to privatize federally owned land in the U.S., but the idea can easily be used as a template for Iraqi oil.
Using their scheme, the Iraqi government would award, to each citizen, certificates representing a claim on the nation's oil wealth. These certificates would resemble a no par stock certificate and function as the currency for oil purchases. If the land already producing oil is worth $100 billion as observers estimate, then each Iraqi would receive certificates worth roughly $4,000. Since that figure is about double the annual wage of a middle-class Iraqi, awarding 10, or even 100, certificates per citizen would make sense in terms of personal asset management.
At any rate, the total amount of certificates would represent all the oil land -- productive and prospective. These certificates would be alienable -- that is, they could be freely traded or transferred. Trading and price discovery could be facilitated by listing the certificates on a stock or commodities exchange. The exchanges, of course, would be free to create futures and/or options markets in these certificates. The certificates would retain their value until the last inch of oil land is surveyed and auctioned.
The actual mechanism would look something like this: As the oil land is surveyed and divided into discrete units, an open auction for the deeds of each unit would be held. The deeds won by auction would be paid for in certificates. Buyers of the deeds -- anyone from an Iraqi citizen to a giant oil company -- must pay with certificates purchased on the market either before or right after the auction. (The existence of a futures or option market would allow potential buyers to hedge their purchases.) Holding a rolling auction -- probably over several decades -- has several virtues. The economy avoids the inflationary impact of a huge, sudden capital inflow; certificate holders can time their cash flow by deciding whether to sell early in the process or at the end of the auction period; and prices for individual certificates could be kept low by declaring "stock splits."
Of course, there will be some Iraqis who are missed during the registration period and don't get certificates. Since they still have a claim on the oil wealth, Vernon Smith suggests the creation of a reserve so that certificates can be awarded as these people present themselves.
Isso é que eu chamo de aplicação da economia para problemas reais. Mas, claro, eu sou um chato, né?
O Prêmio Nobel de Economia de 2003, Vernon Smith, neste artigo, trata de um problema que já tentei discutir aqui antes - sem sucesso: o da alocação de petróleo num Iraque pós-ditadura.
Sound too pie-in-the-sky for a country that has been deprived of working financial markets for decades? Not really, thanks to a clever idea put forward by economists Terry Anderson and Vernon Smith (who won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2002), and statistician Emily Simmons. In a paper written for the Cato Institute in 1999, the authors outlined a scheme to privatize federally owned land in the U.S., but the idea can easily be used as a template for Iraqi oil.
Using their scheme, the Iraqi government would award, to each citizen, certificates representing a claim on the nation's oil wealth. These certificates would resemble a no par stock certificate and function as the currency for oil purchases. If the land already producing oil is worth $100 billion as observers estimate, then each Iraqi would receive certificates worth roughly $4,000. Since that figure is about double the annual wage of a middle-class Iraqi, awarding 10, or even 100, certificates per citizen would make sense in terms of personal asset management.
At any rate, the total amount of certificates would represent all the oil land -- productive and prospective. These certificates would be alienable -- that is, they could be freely traded or transferred. Trading and price discovery could be facilitated by listing the certificates on a stock or commodities exchange. The exchanges, of course, would be free to create futures and/or options markets in these certificates. The certificates would retain their value until the last inch of oil land is surveyed and auctioned.
The actual mechanism would look something like this: As the oil land is surveyed and divided into discrete units, an open auction for the deeds of each unit would be held. The deeds won by auction would be paid for in certificates. Buyers of the deeds -- anyone from an Iraqi citizen to a giant oil company -- must pay with certificates purchased on the market either before or right after the auction. (The existence of a futures or option market would allow potential buyers to hedge their purchases.) Holding a rolling auction -- probably over several decades -- has several virtues. The economy avoids the inflationary impact of a huge, sudden capital inflow; certificate holders can time their cash flow by deciding whether to sell early in the process or at the end of the auction period; and prices for individual certificates could be kept low by declaring "stock splits."
Of course, there will be some Iraqis who are missed during the registration period and don't get certificates. Since they still have a claim on the oil wealth, Vernon Smith suggests the creation of a reserve so that certificates can be awarded as these people present themselves.
Isso é que eu chamo de aplicação da economia para problemas reais. Mas, claro, eu sou um chato, né?
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