| Most empirical studies of the Resource Curse Hypothesis (RCH) find evidence of a strong negative relationship between a country's natural resource abundance and economic growth. We question the reliability of these findings in relation to the definitions and measures used for both resource intensity and economic growth, and the econometric testing which we consider deficient. We use an alternative, per capita resource rents measure of resource intensity that excludes renewable resources and avoids the circularity and bias of other output-related measures. Using Cluster Analysis, we compare the grouping of countries on the basis of three resource intensity definitions; viz. Sachs and Warner's (1995), Gylfason and Zoega's (2002) and our per capita rents, and... |
