Corruption Natural Resources And Development

This book provides a fresh and extensive discussion of corruption issues in natural resources sectors. Reflecting on recent debates in corruption research and revisiting resource curse challenges in light of political ecology approaches, this volume provides a series of nuanced and policy-relevant case studies analyzing patterns of corruption around natural resources and options to reach anti-corruption goals. The potential for new variations of the resource curse in the forest and urban land sectors and the effectiveness of anti-corruption policies in resource sectors are considered in depth. Corruption in oil, gas, mining, fisheries, biofuel, wildlife, forestry and urban land are all covered, and potential solutions discussed.

We study how natural resources can feed corruption and how this effect depends on the quality of the democratic institutions. Our game-theoretic model predicts that natural resources lead to an increase in corruption if the quality of the democratic institutions is relatively poor, but not otherwise. We use panel data covering the period 1980 to 2004 and 99 countries to test this theoretical prediction. Our estimates confirm that the relationship between resource abundance and corruption depends on the quality of the democratic institutions. In particular, resource abundance is positively associated with corruption only in countries that have endured a nondemocratic regime for more than 60 percent of the years since 1956. Our main results hold when we control for the effects of income, time varying common shocks, regional fixed effects and various additional covariates. They are also robust to various alternative measures of natural resources, corruption and the quality of the democratic institutions. These findings imply that democratization can be a powerful tool to reduce corruption in resource-rich countries.

This paper argues that natural resource abundance creates opportunities for rent-seeking behavior and is an important factor in determining a country’s level of corruption. In a simple growth model, we illustrate the interrelationships between natural resources, corruption, and economic growth, and discuss potential anti-corruption policies. We show that the extent of corruption depends on natural resource abundance, government policies, and the concentration of bureaucratic power. Furthermore, the growth effects of natural resource discoveries and anticorruption policies crucially depend on the economy’s state of development. We empirically corroborate the model’s implications in a cross-country framework with both corruption and growth endogenized.

Some natural resources-oil and minerals in particular-exert a negative and nonlinear 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 primarily responsible for Nigeria's 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 "resource curse," or "paradox of plenty," refers to the long-established notion central in development economics that countries rich in natural resources, particularly minerals and fuels, perform less well economically than countries with fewer natural resources. In other words, resources are an economic curse rather than a blessing. This short primer explores the complexities of this idea and the debates that surround it, in particular under what conditions the resource curse might operate, if not universal. Discussion ranges over the nature of resource booms, the benefits and costs of export-led growth, the problems of deindustrialization and manufacturing base erosion, rent-seeking behavior and corruption, and the empirical evidence of the effects of natural resource dependence on growth. The treatment is nontechnical and accessible, drawing throughout on a range of illustrative examples from across the developed and developing world. The Resource Curse offers an authoritative introduction to one of the most perplexing issues of economic growth.

Despite being Africa’s largest economy and most populous country, with abundant natural resources, Nigeria still faces substantial development challenges. This book argues that corruption lies at the heart of many of the country’s problems. Drawing on a range of different disciplinary perspectives, this volume explores the relationship between corruption and development, investigating the causes, contexts, and consequences of corruption, and the pathways for addressing it. As well as covering the wider background and theory surrounding corruption in the country, the book will investigate different sectors: the media, the judiciary, the health sector, industry, the criminal justice system, and of course politics and governance. The book concludes by considering attitudes and perceptions to corruption within Nigeria, current approaches to countering corruption, and future pathways to addressing the problem. This book’s critical investigation of the links between corruption and development in Nigeria will be of interest to researchers of corruption, development and African Studies, as well as to policy makers, practitioners, and local stakeholders.

Since the 1960s the per capita incomes of the resource-poor countries have grown significantly faster than those of the resource-abundant countries. In fact, in recent years economic growth has been inversely proportional to the share of natural resource rents in GDP, so that the small mineral-driven economies have performed least well and the oil-driven economies worst of all. Yet the mineral-driven resource-rich economies have high growth potential because the mineral exportsboost their capacity to invest and to import."Resource Abundance and Economic Development" explains the disappointing performance of resource-abundant countries by extending the growth accounting framework to include natural and social capital. The resulting synthesis identifies two contrasting development trajectories: the competitive industrialization of the resource-poor countries and the staple trap of many resource-abundant countries. The resource-poor countries are less prone to policy failure than the resource-abundant countriesbecause social pressures force the political state to align its interests with the majority poor and follow relatively prudent policies. Resource-abundant countries are more likely to engender political states in which vested interests vie to capture resource surpluses (rents) at the expense of policycoherence. A longer dependence on primary product exports also delays industrialization, heightens income inequality, and retards skill accumulation. Fears of 'Dutch disease' encourage efforts to force industrialization through trade policy to protect infant industry. The resulting slow-maturing manufacturing sector demands transfers from the primary sector that outstrip the natural resource rents and sap the competitiveness of the economy.The chapters in this collection draw upon historical analysis and models to show that a growth collapse is not the inevitable outcome of resource abundance and that policy counts. Malaysia, a rare example of successful resource-abundant development, is contrasted with Ghana, Bolivia, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, and Argentina, which all experienced a growth collapse. The book also explores policies for reviving collapsed economies with reference to Costa Rica, South Africa, Russia and Central Asia. Itdemonstrates the importance of initial conditions to successful economic reform.

The problem of corruption is of central significance for the developmental prospects of poor countries. Corruption undermines development by siphoning off resources for infrastructures and public services and by weakening the legitimacy of the state. The volume will appeal to academics and policy-makers concerned with problems of governance and public management in developing countries, as well as specialists working on corruption and designing anti-corruption strategies.

The curse of natural resources is a well-documented phenomenon for developing countries. Economies that are richly endowed with natural resources tend to grow slowly. Among the transition economies of the former 'Eastern Bloc', a similar pattern can be observed. This paper shows that a large part of the variation in growth rates among the transition economies can be attributed to the curse of natural resources. After controlling for numerous other factors, there is still a strong negative correlation between natural resource abundance and economic growth. Among the transition economies the prime reasons for the curse of natural resources were corruption and a neglect of basic education. In order to overcome the curse of natural resources and move to a sustainable path of development, the resource abundant transition countries should fight corruption and ensure that their resource revenues are invested in human capital or the preservation of natural capital.