Issue № 64. October 2017

“Resource Curse”: Points of View

Irina Yu. Khovavko — Ph.D., Faculty of Economics, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russian Federation.
E-mail: hovavko@econ.msu.ru

Kirill I. Shvedow — graduate student, Faculty of Economics, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russian Federation.
E-mail: kirshved@mail.ru

Active development of the oil and gas industries in the 20th century gave rise to a number of scientific discussions on the utility of resource wealth for resource-dependent economies. The paradigm of the negative impact of natural wealth on economic growth was called the “resource curse” or the “paradox of abundance”. A rather large amount of scientific literature is devoted to this topic, but there is still no unambiguous opinion as to whether the “resource curse” is an objective law or there are ways to overcome it. The aim of this work is to systematize the scientific approaches to the study of the economic and political consequences of natural resources. On the basis of the analysis of the works of Russian and foreign authors devoted to the phenomenon of the resource curse, three scientific directions (macroeconomic, geographic and institutional) are singled out, explaining the problems of states oriented on the export of natural resources.

Keywords

Resource curse, paradox of abundance, resource-based economy, the effectiveness of governance.