The Role of Energy in SustainableDevelopment: The Mexican Case

摘要

Is having natural gas and oil (GO), a blessing or a curse?Mexico plays an important role as trading partner in energywith US and Canada. Mexico’s energy potential isunderutilized. Its recent stagnation is attributable not toresource scarcity, but to insufficient government investment innew drilling activity. The purpose of this paper is to build aneconometric model that links GO drilling with reserves andproduction. Simulations are performed. GO are critical to theachievement of sustainable development. Policy errors explainthe failure to provide investment in capacity required to meetGO world’s growing demand. Mexico must either develop itsGO domestic sources or increase imports. The Mexican Caseserves as a useful counter to two recent theories that minimizesuch potential. The theory by Colin Campbell states that globalGO supplies are near or past their peak, owed to the cumulativeeffects of resource exhaustion. The second, developed by JeffreySachs (“The Resource Curse”), considers that GO offer nopotential for useful contribution to sustainable development, butimpede it by reducing the economic welfare of the hostcountries. This paper aims in influencing World Bank’sdecisions now under consideration for future funding of GOproduction after 2008.