The distributional dimension of the resource curse: Commodity price shocks and income inequality

Soran Mohtadi and David Castells-Quintana ()

Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, 2021, vol. 59, issue C, 63-78

Abstract: How does high dependence on natural resources affect income inequality? Surprisingly little is known about the impact of dependence on primary goods on income distribution. Building on insights from the resource curse literature, this paper studies the relationship between income shocks through changes in commodity prices and income inequality in a panel of 80 countries from 1990 to 2016. We analyze differentiated effects of commodity price shocks depending on the type of commodity (labor vs. capital-intensive). We also study differences across world regions and explore potential mechanisms by looking at different types of inequality (pay-driven vs. capital-rents-driven). Results show that commodity price shocks have an impact on income inequality. However, this impact depends on the type of commodity and inequality.

Keywords: resource curse; commodity price shocks; inequality; natural resources; resource booms; development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 O15 Q33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0954349X21000898
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
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:streco:v:59:y:2021:i:c:p:63-78

DOI: 10.1016/j.strueco.2021.08.002

Access Statistics for this article

Structural Change and Economic Dynamics is currently edited by F. Duchin, H. Hagemann, M. Landesmann, R. Scazzieri, A. Steenge and B. Verspagen

More articles in Structural Change and Economic Dynamics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().