Introduction
Last week I displayed the macroeconomic underpinnings in the claim several have made to the effect that “Guyana is the newest petrostate in the Americas”. To date, the data do reflect a historically unprecedented explosive growth of crude oil activities in Guyana’s income growth, export earnings, import spending and fiscal revenues over the years since First Oil [December 2019]. As indicated last week, this week’s column displays the microeconomic foundations of this claim.
As will be observed the micro data performance is equally stunning. Further, the macro and microeconomic data, while necessary for determining a petrostate, they are not by themselves sufficient for this purpose, as complementary systemic features are required [social, political, cultural, and institutional].