Sovereign wealth funds vs. treasury spending: what a country does with its oil windfall

Oil revenue arrives as a windfall, but what a government does with it next is a policy choice, not an accident, and that choice tends to lock in for decades. Norway and Britain drew from the same North Sea reserves starting in the 1970s: one channeled proceeds into what became the world's largest sovereign wealth fund, the other ran the money through treasury spending. The divergence between those two paths is the clearest available case study for a decision every oil-producing country eventually confronts, from Norway's original bet to Nigeria's and Guyana's more recent versions of it. The entries collected here look at that fork from different angles — fiscal, political, historical — asking why some governments save windfalls and others spend them, and what follows either way.

Norway's sovereign wealth fund model · Britain's North Sea spending path · fund-based vs. spend-as-you-go comparisons · Nigeria's oil revenue management · Guyana's emerging petrostate choices · fiscal policy under resource windfalls