Dr James (Jim) Cust is a Senior Economist in the Office of the Chief Economist, Africa Region of the World Bank. His research focuses on the macroeconomics of natural resources, climate change and sustainable development. He led the Changing Wealth of Nations program, a flagship sustainability publication and database of natural capital accounts produced by the World Bank. He previously co-founded a network of African chief economic advisors to 40 African presidents, the CEoG initiative, and before this co-founded the Natural Resource Charter. He co-developed the new concepts of the Presource Curse and of the potential for Stranded Nations, as well as recently published the book Africa’s Resource Future: harnessing natural resources for economic transformation during the low carbon transition.

His work has been published widely in academic journals such as the Journal of the European Economic Association, the Journal of Development Economics, Energy Economics and Climate Policy, among others. His work has been covered in the press including The Economist, Nature, Reuters and the IMF’s Finance and Development. James holds a DPhil (PhD) in Economics from the University of Oxford.