This paper studies the effects of oil rent on development using a unique panel dataset describing worldwide oil discoveries and extractions. First, we revisit the so-called curse of oil, which contends that oil rent hinders economic development. Exploiting cross-country variations in the timing...

More than seventy percent of China's outward direct investment (ODI), according to the Ministry of Commerce statistics, is invested in Hong Kong, the British Virgin Islands, and the Cayman Islands. Using a unique micro-level dataset collected by the Heritage Foundation that documents individual...

We show that previous results from the resource curse literature are primarily driven by collapsing in oil prices since the mid-1980s. Exploiting cross-country variations in the size of initial oil endowments and the timing of oil discoveries, we find that there is a stable positive relationship...

We provide evidence that deterioration of relations between the United States and another country, measured by divergence in their UN General Assembly voting patterns, reduces US imports from that country during the second wave of globalization. Though statistically significant, such an effect...