In 1995, Jeffrey Sachs and Andrew Warner found a negative relationship between natural resources and economic growth, and claimed that natural resource abundance is a curse. The work of Sachs and Warner has been widely cited, and many economists now accept the curse of natural resources as a proven phenomenon (e.g. Papyrakis and Gerlagh, 2004; Kronenberg, 2004). In this thesis, I provide a new framework for evaluating this claim. I begin by providing a summary of the related literature and discussion of possible explanations for the curse. This summary is followed by a critical assessment of the theory underlying previous research. Next, I develop a new model for evaluating the curse of natural resources. I find that natural resource abundance does not directly impact economic development. However, petroleum resources are associated with rent-seeking behaviour that can negatively influence economic development. Finally, I show that my results are robust to various sensitivity analyses. The results from my model provide a deeper understanding of how natural resource abundance affects economic outcomes.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uvic.ca/oai:dspace.library.uvic.ca:1828/281 |
| Date | 19 December 2007 |
| Creators | Pendergast, Shannon Marie |
| Contributors | van Kooten, G. Cornelis, Clarke, Judith A. |
| Source Sets | University of Victoria |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | Available to the World Wide Web |
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