The Varieties of Resource Experience.pdfVIP

The Varieties of Resource Experience: How Natural Resource Export Structures Affect the Political Economy of Economic Growth by Jonathan Isham Lant Pritchett Michael Woolcock Gwen Busby June 2004 MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE ECONOMICS DISCUSSION PAPER NO. 03-08R DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE MIDDLEBURY, VERMONT 05753 /~econ The Varieties of Resource Experience: How Natural Resource Export Structures Affect the Political Economy of Economic Growth* Jonathan Isham Michael Woolcock Middlebury College World Bank and Harvard University Lant Pritchett Gwen Busby Harvard University Oregon State University This draft: June 29, 2004 Abstract: Many oil, mineral, and plantation crop-based economies experienced a substantial deceleration of growth since the commodity boom and bust of the 1970s and early 1980s. In this paper, we illustrate how countries dependent on point-source natural resources and plantation crops are predisposed to heightened social divisions and weakened institutional capacity. This, in turn impedes their ability to respond effectively to shocks, which previous studies have shown to be essential for sustaining rising levels of prosperity. Controlling for a wide array of othe