Journal of African Economies· 2012Q2
Addressing the Natural Resource Curse: An Illustration from Nigeria
- 1,205citations
- Q2SCImago
- 2012year
Short summary
Directly distributing oil revenues to the public can mitigate the negative impact of natural resources on institutional quality and long-run growth, as exemplified by Nigeria's experience.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Key points
- Natural resources like oil can negatively and non-linearly impact growth by degrading institutional quality.
- Nigeria's economic performance is presented as a case study, linking oil wealth to waste and poor institutions.
- A proposed solution is the direct distribution of oil revenues to the public.
- This distribution could improve public institutions and boost long-run growth.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
Some natural resources—oil and minerals in particular—exert a negative and non-linear impact on growth via their deleterious impact on institutional quality. We show this result to be very robust. The Nigerian experience provides telling confirmation of this aspect of natural resources. Waste and poor institutional quality stemming from oil appear to have been responsible for its poor long-run economic performance. We propose a solution for addressing this resource curse which involves directly distributing the oil revenues to the public. Even with all the difficulties that will, no doubt, plague its actual implementation, our proposal will, at the least, be vastly superior to the status quo. At best, however, it could fundamentally improve the quality of public institutions and, as a result, durably raise long-run growth performance.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Journal of African Economies, 2012 · DOI ↗
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Field: General Economics, Econometrics and Finance
General Economics, Econometrics and FinanceEconomics, Econometrics and Finance