We revisit resource curse theory by providing empirical evidence for the effects of natural resource on the subjective wellbeing. Using cross-sectional model based on a global sample of 149 countries, we highlight that resources rents tend to reduce happiness but this effect differs according to (i) the political system and the level of development, (ii) the types and the measures of natural resources and (iii) the scale of happiness. Specifically, the negative effect of natural resources on happiness tends to be amplified in developing and weak democracy countries. Furthermore, the disaggregation of natural resource rents show that while oil rents and natural gas rent have a significant negative effect, forest, coal and mineral rents do not. However, after using the quantile regression approach, we find that these effects vary at different intervals throughout the happiness distribution.
Structural change is seen by development economics theorists as a driver of sustained and sustainable economic growth. African countries that have understood this prioritize structural change policies in their national development programs in order to reduce poverty and promote employment through commodity-based industrialization. How does infrastructure development contribute to this process? The purpose of this paper is to answer this question by examining empirically whether the state of infrastructure development in Africa stimulates structural change, understood as the development of the manufacturing sector. After outlining the state of infrastructure quality in the region, and discussing some theoretical channels through which this relationship might pass, we estimate fixed effects models from 52 African countries over the period 2003-2018. Results which are robust to controlling for institutional dynamics and the natural resource curse hypothesis suggest that structural change in Africa is optimized with the development of infrastructure, particularly energy and information and communication technologies. Among other policy implications arising from these findings, the establishment of partnership projects with other developed countries in terms of superstructure for enhanced industrialization is recommended.
The object of this paper is to evaluate the contribution of structural transformation to the labour productivity growth in Cameroon over the period 1965 to 2015. To do this, we use a growth decomposition technique following the work of McMillan and Rodrik (2011) and De Vries et al. (2015). Our results show that structural transformation, viewed as a progressive reallocation of the workforce from sectors with low productivity to those with high productivity, has contributed little to the increase in labour productivity growth. It is actually the within component that seems to explain most of the productivity gains, while the between component that characterizes structural transformation has been rather weak. Even more, the dynamic share of this structural transformation was negative throughout the period covered by the study. Econometric estimates make it possible to identify economic growth (approximated by the GDP per capita), trade openness, exchange rate depreciation and the quality of the institutions, particularly the decrease of corruption, as factors having affected structural transformation and on which Cameroon should act with appropriate economic policies.
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