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...

Do resource-extraction booms crowd out postsecondary education? We explore this question by examining the higher education-related decisions of Chilean high school graduates during the 2000s commodities boom. We find mineral extraction increases a person's likelihood of enrolling in...

The Need for Environmental and Natural Resource Policy -- Classical Causes of Environmental Degradation -- Public Economics and Information -- Adapting Models to Ecosystems: Ecology, Time, and Space -- The Evolution of Rights -- Review of Policy Instruments -- Direct Regulation of the...