IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wii/rpaper/rr471.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Balancing Natural Resources and Human and Social Capital: Pathways to Economic Diversification in Mongolia

Author

Listed:
  • Thorvaldur Gylfason
  • Jean-Pascal N. Nganou

Abstract

Economic diversification has gained significant attention as a crucial factor for sustainable development worldwide. This paper addresses the risks associated with extreme specialisation and explores the potential benefits of economic diversification for Mongolia. By comparing Mongolia with its designated aspirational and structural peers, the paper aims to shed light on strategies that can foster economic and societal diversification in the country. Although Mongolia possesses favourable levels of human capital compared with its peers, its unusually high ratio of natural capital to human capital highlights the necessity of reducing reliance on natural resources and promoting human capital-intensive economic activities. The paper examines the implications of declining demand for Mongolia's key minerals, primarily coal, resulting from climate change concerns and evolving investor preferences towards sustainability, China's coal consumption reduction goals, and the enduring impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Through this analysis, the paper offers insights into pathways for Mongolia to diversify its economy and enhance the well-being of its people by striking a balance between natural resources and human and social capital.

Suggested Citation

  • Thorvaldur Gylfason & Jean-Pascal N. Nganou, 2023. "Balancing Natural Resources and Human and Social Capital: Pathways to Economic Diversification in Mongolia," wiiw Research Reports 471, The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw.
    • Handle: RePEc:wii:rpaper:rr:471
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://wiiw.ac.at/balancing-natural-resources-and-human-and-social-capital-pathways-to-economic-diversification-in-mongolia-dlp-6633.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    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. Anthony J. Venables, 2016. "Using Natural Resources for Development: Why Has It Proven So Difficult?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 30(1), pages 161-184, Winter.
    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. Badeeb, Ramez Abubakr & Lean, Hooi Hooi & Clark, Jeremy, 2017. "The evolution of the natural resource curse thesis: A critical literature survey," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 123-134.
    2. Nouf Alsharif & Sambit Bhattacharyya & Maurizio Intartaglia, 2016. "Economic Diversification in Resource Rich Countries: Uncovering the State of Knowledge," Working Paper Series 09816, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    3. Federico Carril-Caccia & Juliette Milgram-Baleix & Jordi Paniagua, 2019. "Foreign Direct Investment in oil-abundant countries: The role of institutions," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(4), pages 1-23, April.
    4. Paltseva, Elena & Toews , Gerhard & Troya-Martinez, Marta, 2022. "I’ll pay you later: Sustaining Relationships under the Threat of Expropriation," SITE Working Paper Series 59, Stockholm School of Economics, Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics.
    5. Muhamad, Goran M. & Heshmati, Almas & Khayyat, Nabaz T., 2021. "How to reduce the degree of dependency on natural resources?," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    6. Ben-Salha, Ousama & Dachraoui, Hajer & Sebri, Maamar, 2021. "Natural resource rents and economic growth in the top resource-abundant countries: A PMG estimation," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    7. Frederick van der Ploeg & Anthony J. Venables, 2017. "Extractive revenues and government spending: Short- versus long-term considerations," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2017-45, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    8. van der Ploeg, Frederick, 2019. "Macro policy responses to natural resource windfalls and the crash in commodity prices," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 263-282.
    9. Jorge Gallego & Stanislao Maldonado & Lorena Trujillo, 2018. "Blessing a Curse? Institutional Reform and Resource Booms in Colombia," Working Papers 122, Peruvian Economic Association.
    10. Gozgor, Giray & Paramati, Sudharshan Reddy, 2022. "Does energy diversification cause an economic slowdown? Evidence from a newly constructed energy diversification index," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    11. Bazillier, Remi & Girard, Victoire, 2020. "The gold digger and the machine. Evidence on the distributive effect of the artisanal and industrial gold rushes in Burkina Faso," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    12. Keller, Michael, 2020. "Wasted windfalls: Inefficiencies in health care spending in oil rich countries," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    13. Frederick van der Ploeg & Anthony J. Venables, 2017. "Extractive revenues and government spending: Short- versus long-term considerations," WIDER Working Paper Series 045, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    14. Nouf Alsharif & Sambit Bhattacharyya, 2022. "Oil Discovery, Boom-Bust Cycle and Manufacturing Slowdown: Evidence from a Large Industry Level Dataset," Working Paper Series 0222, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    15. Alsharif, Nouf & Bhattacharyya, Sambit & Intartaglia, Maurizio, 2017. "Economic diversification in resource rich countries: History, state of knowledge and research agenda," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 154-164.
    16. Akram, Vaseem & Ali, Jabir, 2022. "Do countries converge in natural resources rents? Evidence from club convergence analysis," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    17. Fabian Mendez Ramos, 2020. "Sudden Influxes of Resource Wealth to the Economy," World Bank Publications - Reports 33614, The World Bank Group.
    18. Yilanci, Veli & Aslan, Murat & Ozgur, Onder, 2021. "Disaggregated analysis of the curse of natural resources in most natural resource-abundant countries," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    19. Matata Ponyo Mapon & Jean-Paul K. Tsasa, 2019. "The artefact of the Natural Resources Curse," Papers 1911.09681, arXiv.org.
    20. Almansour, Abdullah, 2023. "Crude oil cycles and the choice of private vs public school: Evidence from Saudi Arabia," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(PA).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Economic growth; Economic diversification; Natural resources; Human capital; Social capital; Governance; Democracy; Transition;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O11 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • O13 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Environment; Other Primary Products
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:wii:rpaper:rr:471. 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: Customer service (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/wiiwwat.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.