IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/deg/conpap/c009_011.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Natural Resources and Economic Growth: The Role of Investment

Author

Listed:
  • Thorvaldur Gylfason
  • Gylfi Zoega

Abstract

Is it possible that relying too heavily on natural resources affects saving and investment in a way that hampers economic growth? – and thus, in the long run, the level of output per capita. This paper reviews the literature, explores the data and compares and contrasts the explanatory power and interplay of natural resources and civil liberties, our proxy for institutional variables currently under scrutiny in the literature. We propose that natural resources may be viewed as an exogenous factor that hampers economic development and investment as well as institutions.

Suggested Citation

  • Thorvaldur Gylfason & Gylfi Zoega, 2004. "Natural Resources and Economic Growth: The Role of Investment," DEGIT Conference Papers c009_011, DEGIT, Dynamics, Economic Growth, and International Trade.
    • Handle: RePEc:deg:conpap:c009_011
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://degit.sam.sdu.dk/papers/degit_09/C009_011.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Romer, Paul M, 1986. "Increasing Returns and Long-run Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(5), pages 1002-1037, October.
    2. Gylfason, Thorvaldur & Zoega, Gylfi, 2002. "Inequality and Economic Growth: Do Natural Resources Matter?," Conference papers 330968, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    3. Gylfason, Thorvaldur & Herbertsson, Tryggvi Thor, 2001. "Does inflation matter for growth?," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 405-428, December.
    4. Robert J. Barro, 1998. "Determinants of Economic Growth: A Cross-Country Empirical Study," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262522543, April.
    5. Pritchett, Lant, 2000. "The Tyranny of Concepts: CUDIE (Cumulated, Depreciated, Investment Effort) Is Not Capital," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 361-384, December.
    6. Robert G. King & Ross Levine, 1993. "Finance and Growth: Schumpeter Might Be Right," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(3), pages 717-737.
    7. Auty, Richard M., 2001. "The political economy of resource-driven growth," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(4-6), pages 839-846, May.
    8. Easterly William R., 2001. "Growth Implosions and Debt Explosions: Do Growth Slowdowns Cause Public Debt Crises?," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 1-26, February.
    9. Jeffrey D. Sachs & Andrew M. Warner, 1995. "Natural Resource Abundance and Economic Growth," NBER Working Papers 5398, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Halvor Mehlum & Karl Moene & Ragnar Torvik, 2006. "Cursed by Resources or Institutions?," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(8), pages 1117-1131, August.
    11. David H. Romer & Jeffrey A. Frankel, 1999. "Does Trade Cause Growth?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 379-399, June.
    12. Robert J. Barro & Paul Romer, 1993. "Economic Growth (1992)," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number barr93-1.
    13. Zoega, Gylfi & Herbertsson, Tryggvi Thor & Skuladottir, Marta, 2000. "Three Symptoms And A Cure: A Contribution To The Economics Of The Dutch Disease," CEPR Discussion Papers 2364, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. N. Gregory Mankiw & David Romer & David N. Weil, 1992. "A Contribution to the Empirics of Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(2), pages 407-437.
    15. Gylfason, Thorvaldur, 1999. "Exports, Inflation and Growth," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 27(6), pages 1031-1057, June.
    16. Malcolm Knight & Norman Loayza & Delano Villanueva, 1996. "The Peace Dividend: Military Spending Cuts and Economic Growth," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 43(1), pages 1-37, March.
    17. Benhabib, Jess & Spiegel, Mark M., 1994. "The role of human capital in economic development evidence from aggregate cross-country data," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 143-173, October.
    18. Gylfason, Thorvaldur & Herbertsson, Tryggvi Thor & Zoega, Gylfi, 1997. "A Mixed Blessing: Natural Resources and Economic Growth," CEPR Discussion Papers 1668, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. David Dollar & Craig Burnside, 2000. "Aid, Policies, and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 847-868, September.
    20. Jörg Mayer & Brian Chambers & Ayisha Farooq (ed.), 1999. "Development Policies in Natural Resource Economies," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1666.
    21. Gylfason, Thorvaldur, 2001. "Natural resources, education, and economic development," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(4-6), pages 847-859, May.
    22. Gylfason, Thorvaldur & Herbertsson, Tryggvi Thor & Zoega, Gylfi, 1999. "A Mixed Blessing," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 3(2), pages 204-225, June.
    23. Gylfason, Thorvaldur & Herbertsson, Tryggvi Thor & Zoega, Gylfi, 1998. "Ownership and Growth," CEPR Discussion Papers 1900, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    24. Benhabib, Jess & Spiegel, Mark M, 2000. "The Role of Financial Development in Growth and Investment," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 341-360, December.
    25. Levine, Ross & Renelt, David, 1992. "A Sensitivity Analysis of Cross-Country Growth Regressions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(4), pages 942-963, September.
    26. Paldam, Martin & Svendsen, Gert Tinggaard, 2000. "An essay on social capital: looking for the fire behind the smoke," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 339-366, June.
    27. Jeffrey D. Sachs, 2003. "Institutions Don't Rule: Direct Effects of Geography on Per Capita Income," NBER Working Papers 9490, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    28. Kevin M. Murphy & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 2008. "Why Is Rent-Seeking So Costly to Growth?," Springer Books, in: Roger D. Congleton & Kai A. Konrad & Arye L. Hillman (ed.), 40 Years of Research on Rent Seeking 2, pages 213-218, Springer.
    29. William D. Nordhaus, 1992. "Lethal Model 2: The Limits to Growth Revisited," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 23(2), pages 1-60.
    30. Temple, Jonathan, 1999. "A positive effect of human capital on growth," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 131-134, October.
    31. World Bank, 2000. "World Development Indicators 2000," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 13828.
    32. 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.
    33. Michael Bruno, 1984. "Raw Materials, Profits, and the Productivity Slowdown," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 99(1), pages 1-29.
    34. Theo S Eicher & Cecilia Garcia Penalosa, "undated". "Inequality and Growth," Working Papers 0083, University of Washington, Department of Economics.
    35. Collier, Paul & Hoeffler, Anke, 1998. "On Economic Causes of Civil War," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 50(4), pages 563-573, October.
    36. Gylfason, Thorvaldur & Zoega, Gylfi, 2001. "Obsolescence," CEPR Discussion Papers 2833, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    37. Avinash K. Dixit & Robert S. Pindyck, 1994. "Investment under Uncertainty," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 5474.
    38. Corden, W M, 1984. "Booming Sector and Dutch Disease Economics: Survey and Consolidation," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 36(3), pages 359-380, November.
    39. Rodriguez, Francisco & Sachs, Jeffrey D, 1999. "Why Do Resource-Abundant Economies Grow More Slowly?," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 4(3), pages 277-303, September.
    40. Lahiri, Kajal & Schmidt, Peter, 1978. "On the Estimation of Triangular Structural Systems," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(5), pages 1217-1221, September.
    41. Krueger, Anne O, 1974. "The Political Economy of the Rent-Seeking Society," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 64(3), pages 291-303, June.
    42. Francisco Rodríguez & Dani Rodrik, 2001. "Trade Policy and Economic Growth: A Skeptic's Guide to the Cross-National Evidence," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2000, Volume 15, pages 261-338, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    43. King, Robert G. & Levine, Ross, 1993. "Finance, entrepreneurship and growth: Theory and evidence," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 513-542, December.
    44. repec:cup:macdyn:v:3:y:1999:i:2:p:204-25 is not listed on IDEAS
    45. Bruno, Michael & Easterly, William, 1998. "Inflation crises and long-run growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 3-26, February.
    46. Pranab Bardhan, 1997. "Corruption and Development: A Review of Issues," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 35(3), pages 1320-1346, September.
    47. Xavier Sala-I-Martin & Gernot Doppelhofer & Ronald I. Miller, 2004. "Determinants of Long-Term Growth: A Bayesian Averaging of Classical Estimates (BACE) Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 813-835, September.
    48. Paldam, Martin, 1997. "Dutch disease and rent seeking: The Greenland model," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 591-614, September.
    49. Philip R. Lane & Aaron Tornell, 1999. "The Voracity Effect," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(1), pages 22-46, March.
    50. Tornell, Aaron & Lane, Philip R., 1998. "Are windfalls a curse?: A non-representative agent model of the current account," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 83-112, February.
    51. Paolo Mauro, 1995. "Corruption and Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(3), pages 681-712.
    52. Birdsall, Nancy, 1996. "Public spending on higher education in developing countries: Too much or too little?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 407-419, October.
    53. Easterly, William & Fischer, Stanley, 1995. "The Soviet Economic Decline," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 9(3), pages 341-371, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Frederick van der Ploeg, 2011. "Natural Resources: Curse or Blessing?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(2), pages 366-420, June.
    2. Thorvaldur Gylfason, 2001. "Nature, Power and Growth," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 48(5), pages 558-588, November.
    3. Kaznacheev, Peter, 2013. "Resource Rents and Economic Growth: Economic and institutional development in countries with a high share of income from the sale of natural resources. Analysis and recommendations based on internatio," EconStor Research Reports 121950, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    4. Rabah Arezki & Frederick van der Ploeg, 2007. "Can the Natural Resource Curse Be Turned into a Blessing? The Role of Trade Policies and Institutions," Economics Working Papers ECO2007/35, European University Institute.
    5. Barbier,Edward B., 2007. "Natural Resources and Economic Development," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521706513.
    6. 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.
    7. Gylfason, Thorvaldur, 2008. "Development and Growth in Mineral-Rich Countries," CEPR Discussion Papers 7031, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Gylfason, Thorvaldur & Herbertsson, Tryggvi Thor, 2001. "Does inflation matter for growth?," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 405-428, December.
    9. Gylfason, Thorvaldur, 2001. "Natural resources, education, and economic development," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(4-6), pages 847-859, May.
    10. Ruba Abdullah Aljarallah, 2020. "The Economic Impacts of Natural Resource Dependency in Gulf Countries," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 10(6), pages 36-52.
    11. Rabah Arezki & Frederick van der Ploeg, 2011. "Do Natural Resources Depress Income Per Capita?," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(3), pages 504-521, August.
    12. Ruba A. Aljarallah & Andrew Angus, 2020. "Dilemma of Natural Resource Abundance: A Case Study of Kuwait," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(1), pages 21582440198, January.
    13. 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.
    14. Gylfason, Thorvaldur, 1999. "Exports, Inflation and Growth," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 27(6), pages 1031-1057, June.
    15. Celal Kucuker, 2003. "Türkiye Ýktisat Kongresi Büyüme Stratejileri Çalýþma Grubu," Working Papers 2003/5, Turkish Economic Association.
    16. Apergis, Nicholas & Payne, James E., 2014. "The oil curse, institutional quality, and growth in MENA countries: Evidence from time-varying cointegration," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 1-9.
    17. Collier, Paul & Goderis, Benedikt, 2012. "Commodity prices and growth: An empirical investigation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(6), pages 1241-1260.
    18. Tiba, Sofien & Frikha, Mohamed, 2019. "The controversy of the resource curse and the environment in the SDGs background: The African context," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 437-452.
    19. Thorvaldur Gylfason & Gylfi Zoega, 2017. "The Dutch Disease in Reverse: Iceland's Natural Experiment," CESifo Working Paper Series 6513, CESifo.
    20. Nuno Torres & Oscar Afonso & Isabel Soares, 2013. "Natural Resources, Wage Growth and Institutions – a Panel Approach," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(5), pages 661-687, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Economic growth; natural resources; investment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O11 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:deg:conpap:c009_011. 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: Jan Pedersen (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iehhsdk.html .

    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.