Resource Rents and Economic Growth

“Resource curse”, “Dutch disease”, “gold rush”, “blood diamonds” – those are just some of the epithets used to characterise the role of natural resources in economic development. They certainly do not set a positive tone for a constructive discussion. The purpose of this report is to change that attitude and lay a foundation for a policy roadmap based on success stories of economic development among resource abundant countries. This report presents the argument that resource economies with better economic and political institutions are more capable of managing their resource revenues, and can achieve superior results in economic growth and social development. To support that argument, we have used empirical evidence and analysed the relevant research that has been conducted on the subject to date. We compare performances of resource economies in different parts of the world depending on their institutional rankings, property structure of their extractive industries and other key parameters.