Dr. James Cust is an economist working in the Office of the Chief Economist, Africa Region at the World Bank. Here he is co-leading a new flagship study on Africa’s Resource Future, examining the potential for natural resource wealth to drive Africa’s economic transformation under pressure from climate change, demographic trends and digitisation.

He also manages the Think Africa Partnership, a regional initiative which seeks to elevate the quality of economic debate and decision making in Africa by supporting key participants in that process, namely: chief government economic advisors, think tanks and scholars. As part of this work the team has established a peer-learning network of presidential economic advisors across 30 African countries.

Prior to his current position, James was Director of Research and Data at the Natural Resource Governance Institute and the founding staff member of the Natural Resource Charter. Both of these initiatives sought to support better outcomes for lower income countries from exploitation of their natural wealth. This involved working directly with governments, academics, and civil society organizations to promote better policymaking and better public debate around the choices countries face when facing resource dependence. James’ research examines the role of government and governance in harnessing natural resources for growth and poverty reduction, in the context of climate pressures. This work covers the choices countries face around wealth in both renewable (especially forests) and non-renewables (oil, gas and minerals). His work addresses policy-relevant empirical questions, utilizing large-scale spatial data and causal identification. He has recently completed work on the Presource Curse – where some countries are shown to experience expectation booms and growth disappointments even before production begins, on Institutions and the location of oil exploration examining how much weak governance can deter investment in lower income countries, and on Stranded Nations examining challenges faced by fossilfuel rich nations in the face of global decarbonization. He has also completed studies on the local impacts of resource wealth, deforestation dynamics, and Dutch disease. James holds a DPhil (PhD) in Economics from the University of Oxford, an MSc with distinction from Oxford, and a first-class BA Hons from Cambridge. He is an external Research Associate of the Oxford

Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies (OxCarre) at the Department of Economics in Oxford. You can find his research online at: www.jamescust.com and he tweets at @jimcust.