In this paper, we examine data on U.S. GDP/Capita and natural resource share of GDP by state. We then run growth regressions and build on a previous model of dynamic equations to account for the spatial equilibrium that exists between U.S. states. Our results show that there exists evidence that overinvestment in oil and mining sectors has negative effects on state TFP growth, thus giving positive evidence for the existence of a natural resource curse between U.S. states.

Despite rational thinking suggesting that a country rich in resources should have higher socioeconomic growth and development,the results of many resource rich countries have not been encouraging. This phenomenon has been studied widely and has been termed the resource curse and denotes how a country with abundant natural resources tends to have lower economic growth and generally display poorer development levels than countries with fewer natural resources. The Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) has been proposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as a tool to curb the resource curse and many resource rich countries have recently started SWFs. The recent activity of SWFs has sparked a lot of interest in this topic but most of the studies conducted to date have failed to determine the effect of the SWF on a country’s socioeconomic development and on its ability to mitigate the resource curse. This research is unique in that it establishes the impact of the creation of a SWF on the socioeconomic performance of resource rich countries by examining the Human Development Index of these countries. In addition,the research examines the key success factors of a SWF and establishes a framework that can be used to ensure that the SWF is effective. The study has found that the establishment of a SWF is not a guarantee of success and that governance is the most significant success factor in a SWFs effectiveness. As a result, the SWF is proposed as one solution to the resource curse and a SWF framework is presented with governance as a key success factor. This research is particularly relevant to the resource dependent economies of Africa that have lagged the rest of the world in many socioeconomic measures such as the Human Development Index and income inequality. The effective deployment of a SWF is one option that these economies can utilise to!ensure that their resource riches are translated into socioeconomic development. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / zkgibs2014 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / MBA / Unrestricted

The resource curse thesis states that countries with an abundance of natural resources tend to experience lower economic growth rates. However, does this theory apply also to the regional level? The purpose of this thesis is to both test the natural resources curse theory at the regional level in Sweden, as well to examine if different types of natural resource dependencies appear to have the same effect on regional income growth in the country. The methodological approach builds on an econometric (OLS) analysis using two different panel datasets over time intervals, 2000-2017 and 2007-2017, respectively. The results from one of the datasets suggest that the dependency on natural resources does not appear to affect Swedish counties' income growth, nor is there any difference in the impact on income growth from different types of natural resources. However, the corresponding results from the other dataset suggest a positive relationship, although these results are not robust across various model specifications. / Teorin om naturresursernas förbannelse förutspår att länder med ett överflöd av naturresurser kommer att ha en lägre ekonomisk tillväxt. Stämmer även denna teori på regional nivå? Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka om resursförbannelsen existerar på regional nivå i Sverige samt att undersöka om olika typer av naturresurser har olika påverkan på den regionala inkomstutvecklingen i landet. Metodiken för att besvara detta bygger på en ekonometrisk (OLS) analys med två olika paneldataset med skilda tidsintervaller, 2000–2017 och 2007–2017. De resultat som baseras på det ena datasetet visar att naturresurser inte har en påverkan på inkomstutvecklingen på svensk länsnivå, samt att olika typer av naturresurser inte heller har en påverkan på den regionala inkomstutvecklingen. Det andra datasetet påvisar dock att det finns ett positivt förhållande mellan regional inkomstutveckling och naturresurser, men detta resultat är inte robust.

Thesis advisor: Richard, S.J. McGowan / The Natural Resource Curse literature proposes to explain why and to what extent resource-wealthy countries have poor economic growth outcomes. Most research focuses on direct economic explanations, considering the role of governing institutions exogenously if at all. One emerging branch of explanations attempts to address this shortcoming, focusing on the indirect effects of institutional deterioration on economic outcomes in resource-rich countries. I add to this emerging literature by performing an econometric analysis of 16 oil-producing nations, examining the impact of national oil rent dependency on 12 dimensions of government quality from 1987-2008. I find that oil dependency has a significant negative impact on government quality in 11 of the 12 dimensions. I also find that controlling for preexisting levels of democracy does not significantly mitigate institutional resource curse effects. This runs counter to findings about economic effects, which tend to disappear when democracy levels are high. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics Honors Program. / Discipline: College Honors Program. / Discipline: Economics.

"Development on the basis of extraction and export of natural resources is a dynamically complex problem. Empirical evidence shows that while some nations have been successful to translate natural resource wealth into long-term development but many have failed too. In this dissertation a system dynamics approach is taken to understand why this is happening and what strategies could facilitate a resource-based development process. In this regard, Mashayekhi’s model of oil-dependency of Iranian economy as one of the few relevant system dynamics examples is updated and revalidated. The results show that despite its capability in showing the dynamics of the problem from an economic perspective it lacks socio-political features that are necessary to address the most fundamental issues of resource-based development. It is shown that Katouzian’s theory of “arbitrary state and society” could fill this gap. The theory is, thus, translated into a system dynamics model so that it could be tested for internal consistency and used for policy analysis. The model is able to explain long-term socio-political-economic instability of a resource-dependent society. On the basis of Mashayekhi’s model, Katouzian’s theory, and other fundamental explanations of natural resource dependency that are available from the literature, a generic eclectic model is developed. The model has gone through a comprehensive list of confidence-building tests. Controlled experimentation through Monte Carlo simulations show that, on the contrary to the current belief, it is unlikely that natural resource wealth be harmful for social welfare. Results also revealed that rule of law is a crucial factor that affects trajectory of the socio-political-economic development. Other findings are as follow. Civil resistance (disobedience) can be harmful for the system in the long-run. While sanctions could affect the economy it has barely an impact on socio-political settings of a society. Finally, wage stabilization, facilitation of social mobility, and privatization of natural resource revenues within certain limits) could help the resource-based development to achieve better outcomes."

"Development on the basis of extraction and export of natural resources is a dynamically complex problem. Empirical evidence shows that while some nations have been successful to translate natural resource wealth into long-term development but many have failed too. In this dissertation a system dynamics approach is taken to understand why this is happening and what strategies could facilitate a resource-based development process. In this regard, Mashayekhi’s model of oil-dependency of Iranian economy as one of the few relevant system dynamics examples is updated and revalidated. The results show that despite its capability in showing the dynamics of the problem from an economic perspective it lacks socio-political features that are necessary to address the most fundamental issues of resource-based development. It is shown that Katouzian’s theory of “arbitrary state and society” could fill this gap. The theory is, thus, translated into a system dynamics model so that it could be tested for internal consistency and used for policy analysis. The model is able to explain long-term socio-political-economic instability of a resource-dependent society. On the basis of Mashayekhi’s model, Katouzian’s theory, and other fundamental explanations of natural resource dependency that are available from the literature, a generic eclectic model is developed. The model has gone through a comprehensive list of confidence-building tests. Controlled experimentation through Monte Carlo simulations show that, on the contrary to the current belief, it is unlikely that natural resource wealth be harmful for social welfare. Results also revealed that rule of law is a crucial factor that affects trajectory of the socio-political-economic development. Other findings are as follow. Civil resistance (disobedience) can be harmful for the system in the long-run. While sanctions could affect the economy it has barely an impact on socio-political settings of a society. Finally, wage stabilization, facilitation of social mobility, and privatization of natural resource revenues within certain limits) could help the resource-based development to achieve better outcomes."

This doctoral thesis presents a critical analysis of the global debate on the ‘good governance’ of the extractive resources sectors. Its starting point is that over the past decade this debate has seen a remarkable elevation, while at the same time the governance concept itself has been subjected to critique. To understand how the sector-focused ‘good governance’ agenda compares against this critique, the thesis uses a conceptual framework that identifies the different uses of this concept. Against this background, it reviews the main scholarly debates on the opportunities and challenges of countries producing extractive resources and identifies four critical questions, which it then sets out to answer. The main argument is that the global debate on the ‘good governance’ of the extractive resources sectors has been built on the widely endorsed conclusion that ‘good institutions’ make for better outcomes and that therefore producer countries need to improve their sector institutions. However, this seemingly obvious conclusion has ignored the complexity and confusion around ‘governance’ and ‘institutions’ that prevails across the broader social science literature. This argument is based on the answers the thesis provides to four critical questions: what are institutions; how do institutions change; how are they enforced; and do existing institutions matter for the design of interventions aimed at improving institutions. The thesis lays open that the policy conclusions of the global debate are premised on the dominance of a particular reference point paired with a particular methodology where the emphasis has been on, first, identifying the types of institutions that have apparently led to desired results, and then to promote these as a means to steer towards these results. It concludes that this focus has premised the global agenda on a false sense of clarity on what producer countries ought to be improving.

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What effects do natural resources, and more specifically the revenues from the extraction and sales of commodities, have on the economies of well-endowed countries in Latin America? How does the political administration of natural resource wealth affect the economic trajectories of these developing countries? Under what conditions do countries successfully use political institutions to administer natural resource windfalls prudently? My dissertation addresses these questions and ultimately explains why natural resource wealth is a blessing for the development of some countries and a curse for others. Specifically, I examine the effectiveness of specific government institutions—called Nonrenewable Resource Stabilization Funds (NRSFs or stabilization funds), which help countries to manage the economic challenges associated with relying upon volatile natural resource revenues—in Chile and Venezuela, two natural resource-rich Latin American countries. Although both of these countries created a NRSF, Chile’s has been very successful while Venezuela’s was extremely weak from the outset. My research suggests that the degree of stabilization fund success—which impacts the severity of the resource curse—depends on these institutions constraining political actors from using rents for venal purposes. In turn, I find that the capacity of NRSFs to restrain the passions of self-interested executives is largely a product of the circumstances accompanying the creation of these institutions; that is, the conditions into which these institutions are born impact stabilization fund performance, but not in the way that the traditional literature predicts. In contrast to extant explanations suggesting that NRSF success is dependent upon clear institutional rules or general state capacity, I find that stabilization funds tend to be unsuccessful when political needs drove their creation while these institutions are likely to function well when economic concerns were the impetus for their adoption. I substantiate the case study evidence of Chile and Venezuela with a broad statistical analysis of 20 other countries that have created NRSFs. / text