Natural Resources: A Blessing or a Curse?

It is commonly assumed that countries are blessed if they have an abundant reserve of natural resources. Poorer countries may be jealous of the luxurious living standard that comes from oil in the Middle East, which seems to be an easy success. At the same time, we are amazed at how gold and diamonds are concentrated in African countries through our classes in geography. However, despite such high income, the economic growth rates of Oman (0.36% in 2006) are incomparable to those of Japan (2.41% in 2006) or Korea (4.42% in 2006), resourcepoor countries. Diamonds and gold do not help the general prevailing poverty in African countries either. This surprising paradox raises the question of whether natural resource abundance is a blessing or actually a “curse.”