We examine the relationship between resource abundance and several indicators of human welfare. Consistent with the existing literature on the relationship between resource abundance and economic growth, we find that resource-abundant countries tend to suffer low levels of human development....

A growing body of empirical research indicates that several types of pollution seem first to increase as per capita income increases and then to decline. The resulting inverted-U relationship between income and pollution has been christened the 'environmental Kuznets curve.' 1 Research on this...

A model of governance implies that democracies provide public goods at different levels than dictatorships. Systems of governance are characterized by inclusiveness—the degree to which public good decisions reflect the interests of all citizens versus an elite subset. The theory indicates...

All dictatorships provide public goods, but levels of provision generally differ from those found in otherwise similar democracies. Some theoretical treatments of this phenomenon emphasize differences in the degree of monopoly power enjoyed by dictators versus leaders of governments, while...

The environmental Kuznets curve (EKC), an inverted-U relationship between pollution and income, is an influential generalization about the way environmental quality changes as a country makes the transition from poverty to relative affluence. The EKC predicts that pollution will first increase,...

The empirical literature on the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) purports to describe how a nation’s environmental quality will evolve if it makes the transition from poverty to wealth. The popular generalization is that pollution will first increase and then, if income becomes...