This chapter discusses whether the Middle East and North African (MENA) countries are prone to be cursed or blessed by their natural resources endowments. It thus reviews the literature on the resource curse theory. The existence of a resource curse is discussed and arguments against advocates...

The "natural resource curse" refers to the apparent paradox in which nations with abundant natural resource endowments tend to have slower rates of economic growth, and less democracy and economic development, than do nations with lesser natural resource endowments. The salient question, of...