Moss, Todd (editor) The Governor’s Solution: How Alaska’s Oil Dividend Could Work in Iraq and Other Oil-Rich Countries

The Governor's Solution

The Governor's Solution

The Governor’s Solution features his firsthand account (PDF) that describes, with brutal honesty and piercing humor, the birth of the Alaska Permanent Fund dividend, which has been paid each year to every citizen-resident of Alaska since 1982. This book, part of the Center for Global Development’s Oil-to-Cash initiative, includes recent scholarly work examining Alaska’s experience and how other oil-rich societies, particularly Iraq, might apply some of the lessons.

Contributors to the book include: Todd Moss (Center for Global Development), Jay Hammond (governor of Alaska 1974–1982 and creator of the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend), Scott Goldsmith (University of Alaska-Anchorage), Nancy Birdsall (Center for Global Development), Arvind Subramanian (Peterson Institute for International Economics and Center for Global Development), and Johnny West (journalist and founder of Open Oil).

Moss, Todd (editor) The Governor’s Solution: How Alaska’s Oil Dividend Could Work in Iraq and Other Oil-Rich Countries, London: Center for Global Development, November 5, 2012

More info about the book is online at the publisher’s website.

IRAQ: BIG to be introduced?

Senator Eduardo Suplicy, of Brazil, campaigned for BIG in Iraq several years ago. This year at the Tenth North American BIG Congress in New York, he announced that the Iraqi ambassador called him to say that the Iraqi government has accepted his proposal and will soon begin distributing a small dividend. Suplicy said he expected it would be in the neighborhood of $15 per person per month. Questioned again in April, Senator Suplicy said he is still trying to get more information about the possibility of an Iraqi dividend.

IRAQ: Muqtada al-Sadr Endorses Alaskan Policy

USBIG reports that Muqtada al-Sadr, the militant Iraqi leader, has endorsed sharing Iraq’s oil revenue among all Iraqis. Some observers speculate that he has been influenced by the idea, discussed widely by Americans early in the occupation, of establishing a program in Iraq based on Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend. An article on Sadr’s demand is online at: www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27257.htm