Oxford EARTH Publications

A race is raging among global powers to secure access to critical minerals to power the simultaneous energy and digital transitions the world is experiencing. The extraordinary growth in demand for critical minerals is putting upward pressure on prices and stimulating new critical mineral discoveries all around the world. However, in developing countries, this new bonanza..

Rabah Arezki  and Frederick van der Ploeg
2025

Critics of foreign aid have argued that donors are driven by ulterior motives beyond their stated goal of reducing poverty in recipient countries. Peter Bauer, a Hungarian-born British economist, presented an early and prescient criticism of aid, arguing that aid is a transfer from taxpayers in rich countries to governments in poor countries. More recently...

Rabah Arezki, Youssouf Camara, Frederick van der Ploeg, Grégoire Rota-Graziosi
2025

For decades, the VAT has been a cornerstone of tax systems worldwide, providing governments with a stable source of revenue and fiscal flexibility. But in many countries, it has not replaced lost tariff income and has encouraged exports of raw materials, highlighting the need to align tax policy with national development priorities...

Rabah Arezki, Grégoire Rota-Graziosi, and Rick van der Ploeg
2025

In the 1930s Montserrat, part of the British Leeward Islands colony, experienced a prolonged period of seismic unrest which many on the island interpreted as presaging a volcanic eruption. During the crisis several international scientists visited Montserrat and advised the local and imperial authorities on the likelihood of an eruption...

Martin Mahony, Jenni Barclay, Karen Pascal, David M. Pyle, Jazmin Scarlett
2025