Do Su fficient Institutions Alter the Relationship between Natural Resources and Economic Growth?

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to test whether institutional governance and its performance is a main driving force to achieve a positive relationship between natural resources and economic growth in the long run. The main objective is to ascertain what kind of institutional governance would be needed to distribute natural resource wealth in such a way so as to achieve economic stability, and what specific policies are needed to avoid the curse in resource-rich developing countries. The research makes an attempt to interpret the role of institutional governance, as reflected by the indicators, in the context of resource-rich, post-Soviet countries. The main finding is that an abundance of natural resources does not guarantee economic growth, where sustainable economic growth can be guaranteed, only if the resource-rich country has good institutional governance.JEL Classification: O11, O43, O53, Q32