The paper considers the process of discovery for subsoil resources, including both hard minerals and hydrocarbons and estimates its magnitude in recent years, as derived from the sum of extraction and changes in proven reserves. Spurred on by technology change and strong market conditions,...

We discuss political economy mechanisms which can explain the resource curse, in which an increase in the size of resource rents causes a decrease in the economy's; total value added. We identify a number of channels through which resource rents will alter the incentives of a political leader....

Empirical evidence has suggested a “resource curse” exists, in which countries with abundant resources may have higher initial consumption but then grow more slowly. The effect appears to be dependent on a country's political structure. Theoretical models not typically accounted for...

The empirical evidence suggests that the resource rich countries tend to have poor economic perfor- mance and higher rent seeking. In this paper, we develop a general equilibrium model explaining why natural resources turn out to be a curse in an economy divided into two classes: elite and...

This paper produces a normative evaluation of fiscal rules for a resource-rich economy. Ad hoc fiscal rules might imply substantial welfare costs; the goal is to analyze the magnitude of these costs by quantitatively evaluating the relative welfare sub-optimality of these rules. I posit a closed...

Genuine saving measures net investment in produced, natural and human capital. It is a necessary condition for weak sustainable development that genuine saving not be persistently negative. However, according to data provided by the World Bank, resource-rich countries are systematically failing...

This paper introduces an empirical growth model that explains the observed perplexing growth-resource regime, dubbed the resource curse. The main hypothesis introduced here, the rentier predatory state hypothesis, holds that under autocracy, the interaction between political power and resource...

This paper explores whether natural resource abundance is a curse or a blessing. In order to do so, we firstly develop a theory consistent econometric model, in which we show that there is a long run relationship between real income, the investment rate, and the real value of oil production....

This paper investigates the effect of institutional quality on sustainable development.Institutional quality is assumed to determine the (perceived) risk in the face of which oil and mining firms determine their level of investment in physical and natural capital. Since these two types of...

This paper empirically analyzes the influence of rents from natural resources on the composition of government spending and investigates whether the relationship differs between democracies and autocracies. Both panel data and instrumental variable regressions suggest that there is a negative...