The Natural Resource Curse Revisited: Is There a Financial Channel?

The paper contributes to the ongoing debate on the natural resource curse, which refers to a negative link between natural resource abundance and economic growth. It shows empirically that resource-rich countries appear to have a less developed financial system and investigates a potential mechanism by applying insights from the finance and trade literature. It tests whether the resource sectors' lower demand of short-term external credit negatively affects financial development of a resource-based economy. This is done with cross-sectional and panel analysis, using an instrument for credit demand based on exogenous geographic determinants. The results, however, suggest that export concentration rather than firms' credit demand drives the detrimental effect of resources on finance.