No abstract

Is it possible that excessive reliance on natural resources affects saving and investment in a way that retards economic growth? - and thus, in the long run, the level of output per capita. This paper reviews the literature, explores the data and compares and contrasts the explanatory power and interplay of natural resources and civil liberties, our proxy for institutional variables currently under scrutiny in the literature. We propose that natural resource dependence may be viewed as an exogenous factor that impedes economic growth and investment as well as institutions, even if we stress that natural resource abundance may be good for growth. Copyright 2006 The Authors Journal compilation 2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

No abstract

No abstract

This paper diagnoses the symptoms of the Dutch disease in a two-sector stochastic endogenous growth model. A productive, low-skill-intensive primary sector causes the currency to appreciate in real terms, thus hampering the development of a high-skill-intensive secondary sector and thereby reducing growth. Moreover, the volatility of the primary sector generates real-exchange-rate uncertainty and may thus reduce investment and learning in the secondary sector and hence also growth. Cross-sectional and panel regressions based on data for 125 countries in the period 1960–1992 confirm a statistically significant inverse relationship between the size of the primary sector and economic growth, but not between the volatility of the real exchange rate and growth.