Addressing the Natural Resource Curse: An Illustration from Nigeria

Xavier Sala-i-Martin and Arvind Subramanian

No 9804, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Some natural resources -- oil and minerals in particular -- exert a negative and nonlinear impact on growth via their deleterious impact on institutional quality. We show this result to be very robust. The Nigerian experience provides telling confirmation of this aspect of natural resources. Waste and corruption from oil rather than Dutch disease has been responsible for its poor long run economic performance. We propose a solution for addressing this resource curse which involves directly distributing the oil revenues to the public. Even with all the difficulties of corruption and inefficiency that will no doubt plague its actual implementation, our proposal will, at the least, be vastly superior to the status quo. At best, however, it could fundamentally improve the quality of public institutions and, as a result, transform economics and politics in Nigeria.

JEL-codes: O1 O4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev
Note: EFG
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (547)

Published as Xavier Sala-i-Martin & Arvind Subramanian, 2013. "Addressing the Natural Resource Curse: An Illustration from Nigeria," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies (CSAE), vol. 22(4), pages 570-615, August.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w9804.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Addressing the Natural Resource Curse: An Illustration from Nigeria (2013)
Chapter: Addressing the Natural Resource Curse: An Illustration from Nigeria (2008)
Working Paper: Addressing the Natural Resource Curse: An Illustration From Nigeria (2003)
Working Paper: Addressing the natural resource curse: An illustration from Nigeria (2003)
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:nbr:nberwo:9804

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w9804

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().