The curse of natural resources

摘要

This paper summarizes and extends previous research that has shown evidence of a "curse of natural resources" - countries with great natural resource wealth tend nevertheless to grow more slowly than resource-poor countries. This result is not easilyexplained by other variables, or by alternative ways to measure resource abundance. This paper shows that there is little direct evidence that omitted geographical or climate variables explain the curse, or that there is a bias resulting from some otherunobserved growth deterrent. Resource-abundant countries tended to be high-price economies and, perhaps as a consequence, these countries tended to miss-out on export-led growth.