Natural resource-rich countries benefited from an exceptional commodity price boom during the 2000s, with metal and oil prices reaching historic highs. This provided a substantial boon to resource-rich developing countries, which benefited from large increases in fiscal revenues and the opportunity to promote economic transformation and development.

However, the more recent reversal in commodity prices has driven home the fact that commodity prices are volatile, unpredictable, and subject to long-lasting shocks. It has also meant that commodity exporters will need to adjust to a—possibly protracted—period of lower export and fiscal revenues.

In light of this recent development, this issue of the Fiscal Monitor examines the conduct of fiscal policy under the uncertainty caused by dependence on natural resource revenues. It draws on extensive past research on the behavior of commodity prices and their implications for macroeconomic outcomes, as well as on extensive IMF technical assistance to resource-rich economies seeking to improve their management of natural resource wealth.