Argentina’s Alaska Moment
With booming hydrocarbon and lithium production, the nation’s provinces need to rethink their stabilization funds.
Almost 60 years ago, as Alaska was beginning an oil boom, local authorities received nearly $900 million from a single lease sale on the North Slope—roughly six times the state’s annual budget at the time. Auspiciously for some, the money went to roads, schools and other regional necessities. But some years later, as the funds started to run out, the state’s Governor Jay Hammond (1974-1982) called them "flamboyant expenditures." Chastened by the rapid depletion of the funds, Alaskans did something almost no resource-rich jurisdiction had done before: In November 1976 they amended...
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