Formal models of the political resource curse

Desiree Desierto

Economics of Governance, 2018, vol. 19, issue 3, No 2, 225-259

Abstract: Abstract By surveying formal models, I demonstrate that the political resource curse is the misallocation of revenues from natural resources and other windfall gains by political agents. I show that the curse always exists if political agents are rent-seeking, since mechanisms of government accountability, e.g. electoral competition, the presence of political challengers, and even the threat of violent conflict, are inherently imperfect. However, the scope for rent-seeking becomes more limited as the competition over political power that threatens the incumbent government becomes more intense.

Keywords: Resource curse; Political rent-seeking; Misappropriation of resource revenues (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D73 D74 H41 O5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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DOI: 10.1007/s10101-018-0207-2

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