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한국관련자료
From Oil Wells to Citizens’ Wealth: The Alaska Dividend at 50 and Why it Matters Far Beyond Alaska
CATO
2026.06.17
Alaska has been quietly running one of the most successful experiments in resource governance for half a century ― and almost no one has copied it. The Alaska Permanent Fund takes oil royalties that would otherwise flow through government budgets, saves them in a sovereign fund, and pays part of the returns directly to every resident as an annual cash dividend. The result is a state with high per capita income, no income tax, low inequality, and a population that has nearly doubled. This paper explains why the model works, why it is fundamentally different from universal basic income, and why the contrast with failed petro-states from Venezuela to Libya matters enormously. Drawing on twenty-five years of research across oil and mineral economies, it argues that the decisive variable is not resource abundance but institutional design: who controls the rents and how they are distributed. Four practical pathways to replication are examined ― from converting existing sovereign wealth funds to designing institutions from scratch in new resource economies. With new oil and critical mineral producers such as Argentina and Guyana now entering the resource game, the opportunity to design better institutions before large rents flow has rarely been more relevant.