The natural resource curse and economic transition

Michael Alexeev and Robert Conrad

Economic Systems, 2011, vol. 35, issue 4, 445-461

Abstract: Using cross-country regressions, we examine the relationship between “point-source” resource abundance and economic growth, quality of institutions, investment in human and physical capital, and social welfare (life expectancy and infant mortality) for all countries and for the economies in transition. Contrary to most literature, we find little evidence of a natural resource curse for all countries. Only the “voice and accountability” measure of institutional quality is negatively and significantly affected by oil wealth. In the economies in transition, there is some evidence that natural resource wealth is associated with lower primary school enrollment and life expectancy and higher infant mortality compared to other resource rich countries. Compared to other economies in transition, however, natural resource abundant transitional economies are not significantly worse off with respect to our indicators.

Keywords: Economic transition; Resource curse; Institutional quality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 P27 P28 Q32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (61)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0939362511000380
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: The Natural Resource Curse and Economic Transition (2009)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecosys:v:35:y:2011:i:4:p:445-461

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecosys.2010.10.003

Access Statistics for this article

Economic Systems is currently edited by R. Frensch

More articles in Economic Systems from Elsevier Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().