IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/weltar/v148y2012i4p733-750.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Specialization dynamics and natural resources abundance

Author

Listed:
  • Roberto Álvarez
  • J. Fuentes

Abstract

This paper uses a large sample of countries for the last four decades to document how specialization dynamics differ depending on the abundance of natural resources. We show interesting stylized facts on two main issues. First, we do not find evidence that comparative advantage in resource-intensive products is necessarily more persistent than comparative advantage in manufactured goods. Second, we analyze the interaction between specialization in manufacturing and natural resources abundance. Though it is less likely that resource-rich countries have comparative advantage in manufactured goods, the abundance of natural resources does not inhibit significant changes in specialization for these countries. Copyright Kiel Institute 2012

Suggested Citation

  • Roberto Álvarez & J. Fuentes, 2012. "Specialization dynamics and natural resources abundance," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 148(4), pages 733-750, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:weltar:v:148:y:2012:i:4:p:733-750
    DOI: 10.1007/s10290-012-0130-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10290-012-0130-5
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10290-012-0130-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Halvor Mehlum & Karl Moene & Ragnar Torvik, 2006. "Institutions and the Resource Curse," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 116(508), pages 1-20, January.
    2. Quah, Danny T, 1996. "Twin Peaks: Growth and Convergence in Models of Distribution Dynamics," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 106(437), pages 1045-1055, July.
    3. Venables, Anthony J. & Maloney, William & Kokko, Ari & Bravo Ortega, Claudio & Lederman, Daniel & Rigobón, Roberto & De Gregorio, José & Czelusta, Jesse & Jayasuriya, Shamila A. & Blomström, Magnus & , 2007. "Natural Resources: Neither Curse nor Destiny," IDB Publications (Books), Inter-American Development Bank, number 350.
    4. Jeffrey D. Sachs & Andrew M. Warner, 1995. "Natural Resource Abundance and Economic Growth," NBER Working Papers 5398, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Redding, Stephen, 2002. "Specialization dynamics," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 299-334, December.
    6. Gylfason, Thorvaldur, 2001. "Natural resources, education, and economic development," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(4-6), pages 847-859, May.
    7. Proudman, James & Redding, Stephen, 2000. "Evolving Patterns of International Trade," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 8(3), pages 373-396, August.
    8. Danny Quah, 1996. "Twin Peaks: Growth and Convergence in Models of Distribution Dynamics," CEP Discussion Papers dp0280, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    9. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2001. "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1369-1401, December.
    10. Tobias Kronenberg, 2004. "The curse of natural resources in the transition economies," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 12(3), pages 399-426, September.
    11. Leamer, E.E., 1995. "The Heckscher-Ohlin Model in Theory and Practice," Princeton Studies in International Economics 77, International Economics Section, Departement of Economics Princeton University,.
    12. Robert C. Feenstra & Robert E. Lipsey & Haiyan Deng & Alyson C. Ma & Hengyong Mo, 2005. "World Trade Flows: 1962-2000," NBER Working Papers 11040, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Stanley L. Engerman & Kenneth Lee Sokoloff, 2002. "Factor Endowments, Inequality, and Paths of Development Among New World Economies," Economía Journal, The Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association - LACEA, vol. 0(Fall 2002), pages 41-110, August.
    14. Ricardo Hausmann & Roberto Rigobon, 2003. "An Alternative Interpretation of the 'Resource Curse': Theory and Policy Implications," NBER Working Papers 9424, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Leamer, Edward E. & Maul, Hugo & Rodriguez, Sergio & Schott, Peter K., 1999. "Does natural resource abundance increase Latin American income inequality?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 3-42, June.
    16. Leamer, Edward E, 1987. "Paths of Development in the Three-Factor, n-Good General Equilibrium Model," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(5), pages 961-999, October.
    17. Peter K. Schott, 2003. "One Size Fits All? Heckscher-Ohlin Specialization in Global Production," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(3), pages 686-708, June.
    18. Shorrocks, A F, 1978. "The Measurement of Mobility," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(5), pages 1013-1024, September.
    19. Quah, Danny, 1993. "Empirical cross-section dynamics in economic growth," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(2-3), pages 426-434, April.
    20. James Proudman & Stephen Redding, 2000. "Evolving Patterns of International Trade," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 8(3), pages 373-396, August.
    21. Maria Mancusi, 2001. "Technological specialization in industrial countries: Patterns and dynamics," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 137(4), pages 593-621, December.
    22. Thomas Vollrath, 1991. "A theoretical evaluation of alternative trade intensity measures of revealed comparative advantage," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 127(2), pages 265-280, June.
    23. Quah, Danny T, 1996. "Convergence Empirics across Economies with (Some) Capital Mobility," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 95-124, March.
    24. Sachs, Jeffrey D. & Warner, Andrew M., 2001. "The curse of natural resources," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(4-6), pages 827-838, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Christopher A. Hartwell & Roman Horvath & Eva Horvathova & Olga Popova, 2019. "Democratic Institutions, Natural Resources, and Income Inequality," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 61(4), pages 531-550, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Rodrigo Fuentes & Roberto Álvarez, 2006. "Paths of Development, Specialization, and Natural Resources Abundance," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 383, Central Bank of Chile.
    2. Álvarez, Roberto & Vergara, Damián, 2022. "Natural resources and educational attainment: Evidence from Chile," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    3. Adrian Boos & Karin Holm‐Müller, 2012. "A theoretical overview of the relationship between the resource curse and genuine savings as an indicator for “weak” sustainability," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 36(3), pages 145-159, August.
    4. Roberto Alvarez & Damián Vergara, 2016. "Natural Resources and Education: Evidence from Chile," Working Papers wp433, University of Chile, Department of Economics.
    5. Redding, Stephen, 2002. "Specialization dynamics," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 299-334, December.
    6. Maria Luisa Mancusi, 2003. "Geographical concentration and the dynamics of countries' specialization in technologies," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(3), pages 269-291.
    7. Ruba A. Aljarallah & Andrew Angus, 2020. "Dilemma of Natural Resource Abundance: A Case Study of Kuwait," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(1), pages 21582440198, January.
    8. Rodrigo García Arancibia, 2009. "Distribución y Movilidad de la Especialización Argentina en el Comercio Mundial de Agroalimentos: Un Estudio Dinámico," Revista de Economía y Estadística, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas, Instituto de Economía y Finanzas, vol. 47(1), pages 11-45, Junio.
    9. Guy Michaels, 2011. "The Long Term Consequences of Resource‐Based Specialisation," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(551), pages 31-57, March.
    10. Boschini, Anne & Pettersson, Jan & Roine, Jesper, 2013. "The Resource Curse and its Potential Reversal," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 19-41.
    11. João Amador & Sónia Cabral & José Maria, 2010. "What can we learn from the distribution of trade patterns?," Portuguese Economic Journal, Springer;Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestao, vol. 9(2), pages 77-95, August.
    12. Lay, Jann & Omar Mahmoud, Toman, 2004. "Bananas, oil, and development: examining the resource curse and its transmission channels by resource type," Kiel Working Papers 1218, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    13. Collier, Paul & Goderis, Benedikt, 2012. "Commodity prices and growth: An empirical investigation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(6), pages 1241-1260.
    14. Raphaël Chiappini, 2014. "Persistence vs. mobility in industrial and technological specialisations: evidence from 11 Euro area countries," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 24(1), pages 159-187, January.
    15. Frankel, Jeffrey A., 2010. "The Natural Resource Curse: A Survey," Scholarly Articles 4454156, Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
    16. Ghamsi Deffo, Salomon Leroy & Adjoumessi Houmpe, Donald & Dasi Yemkwa, Gyslin Hermann, 2020. "Contribution du Capital Humain dans transmission des effets de l’abondance en ressources naturelles au développement économique des pays de la CEMAC [Contribution of Human Capital in transmitting t," MPRA Paper 104492, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. M. Herrerías, 2012. "Weighted convergence and regional growth in China: an alternative approach (1952–2008)," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 49(3), pages 685-718, December.
    18. William F. Maloney & Daniel Lederman, 2008. "In search of the Missing Resource Curse," Economía Journal, The Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association - LACEA, vol. 0(Fall 2008), pages 1-57, August.
    19. Maria Luisa Mancusi, 2000. "The Dynamics of Technology in Industrial Countries," KITeS Working Papers 118, KITeS, Centre for Knowledge, Internationalization and Technology Studies, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy, revised Nov 2000.
    20. Steve Bond & Stephen R. Bond & Adeel Malik, 2008. "Natural resources, export structure and investment," Economics Series Working Papers CSAE WPS/2008-20, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:weltar:v:148:y:2012:i:4:p:733-750. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.