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Open AccessJournal ArticleDOI

Institutions and the Resource Curse

TLDR
In this paper, the authors claim that the main reason for diverging experiences is differences in the quality of institutions, and they test this theory building on Sachs and Warner's influential works on the resource curse.
Abstract
Countries rich in natural resources constitute both growth losers and growth winners. We claim that the main reason for these diverging experiences is differences in the quality of institutions. More natural resources push aggregate income down, when institutions are grabber friendly, while more resources raise income, when institutions are producer friendly. We test this theory building on Sachs and Warner's influential works on the resource curse. Our main hypothesis – that institutions are decisive for the resource curse – is confirmed. Our results contrast the claims of Sachs and Warner that institutions do not play a role.

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Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI

The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation

TL;DR: Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson as discussed by the authors used estimates of potential European settler mortality as an instrument for institutional variation in former European colonies today, and they followed the lead of Curtin who compiled data on the death rates faced by European soldiers in various overseas postings.
Journal ArticleDOI

Using ICTs to create a culture of transparency: E-government and social media as openness and anti-corruption tools for societies

TL;DR: The potential impacts of information and ICTs – especially e-government and social media – on cultural attitudes about transparency are explored.
Posted Content

Natural Resources: Curse or Blessing?

TL;DR: This paper surveys a variety of hypotheses and supporting evidence for why some countries benefit and others lose from the presence of natural resources and offers some welfare-based fiscal rules for harnessing resource windfalls in developed and developing economies.
Journal ArticleDOI

Political foundations of the resource curse

TL;DR: The authors argue that politicians tend to over-extract natural resources relative to the efficient extraction path because they discount the future too much, and resource booms improve the efficiency of the extraction path.
Journal ArticleDOI

Natural Resources: Curse or Blessing?

TL;DR: In this article, a variety of hypotheses and supporting evidence for why some countries benefit and others lose from the presence of natural resources are surveyed and some welfare-based fiscal rules for harnessing resource windfalls in developed and developing economies.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI

The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation

TL;DR: Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson as discussed by the authors used estimates of potential European settler mortality as an instrument for institutional variation in former European colonies today, and they followed the lead of Curtin who compiled data on the death rates faced by European soldiers in various overseas postings.
Journal ArticleDOI

Why do Some Countries Produce So Much More Output Per Worker than Others

TL;DR: This article showed that the differences in capital accumulation, productivity, and therefore output per worker are driven by differences in institutions and government policies, which are referred to as social infrastructure and called social infrastructure as endogenous, determined historically by location and other factors captured by language.
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Institutions and economic performance: cross‐country tests using alternative institutional measures

TL;DR: The authors compared more direct measures of the institutional environment with both the instability proxies used by Barro (1991) and the Gastil indices, by comparing their effects both on growth and private investment.
Journal ArticleDOI

The curse of natural resources

TL;DR: The authors showed that there is little direct evidence that omitted geographical or climate variables explain the curse of natural resources, or that there was a bias resulting from some other unobserved growth deterrent.
Journal ArticleDOI

Does Oil Hinder Democracy

TL;DR: The authors examined three aspects of this "oil impedes democracy" claim and found that oil exports are strongly associated with authoritarian rule, and that other types of mineral exports have a similar antidemocratic effect, while other commodity exports do not.