The Natural Resource Cure : Quality of institutions?

This study explores the natural resource curse and its possible cure via good institutional quality. In theory countries that are resource abundant are said to have slower economic growth than countries that are resource scarce. Earlier studies have shown that resource abundant countries only suffer from the resource curse if the resources are highly appropriable and if the institutional quality is low. If resource abundant countries instead have resources that are highly appropriable and if the institutional quality is high they will benefit from their resources. If a country has resource with low technical appropriability no negative effect on growth is expected. In this study several time periods are studied and it can be concluded that for earlier time periods the resource curse theory in general holds but for later time periods no negative effects of resource abundance on economic growth can be detected.