Introduction
This field paper will discuss the controversy on the existence of ‘resource curse’. Resource curse is an economic paradox which states that countries and regions having an abundant base of natural resources, especially non-renewable and point-sources are likely to have worse performance in economic development and economic growth. This term was first raised in the book ‘Sustaining Development in Mineral Economies: The Resource Curse Thesis’ (Auty, 1993). He describe in this book that country with rich natural resources, like Bolivia, Peru and others, failed to take advantage of this preponderance. Contrarily, they have lower economic growth and poorer disciplined development policies. In one word, they perform worse than less endowed countries. (Auty, 1993) It is still controversial in the academic world that if resource curse exits or not. This paper will summarize the literatures into three sectors: resource curse exist, resource curse does not exist, and resource curse exist under certain conditions.
Controversy on Resource Curse
1. Resource Curse Exist
Auty (199...
Hudson, Rex A., and Hanratty, Dennis M., Ed. Bolivia a country study. Federal Research Division, Library of Congress. 1989. Print.
One of the largest industries within Sierra Leone is mining industry due to it's natural resources such as diamonds. This has caused an issue of food production as many of the youths in Sierra Leone have chosen mining over agriculture. The mining industry offers the potential of making large sums of money so many workers are switching due to “the lure of striking it rich”(Grant Andrew, 2007) . The idea of workers making lager sums of money in other industries is one of the main reasons why their is a labour shortage in the agriculture sector. Although researchers found that “Flooding the labour market in the diamond sector will further reduce the already
Sheahen, John. 1987. Patterns of Development in Latin America: Poverty, Repression, and Economic Strategy. Princeton, N.J. Princeton University Press.
The political power has had enormous affect to the Latin American economy. Most of the countries in the Latin America remained colonies for over a long period of time; therefore, they were controlled by the Europeans power. These colonies never thought of development of the Latin American countries, rather all wealth from the colonies was taken out to the home country. This situation is similar to other colonized continents such as Asia and Africa. Almost every colonized country in the world is still in the process of development. These countries were never benefited economically from the colonizers. Therefore, the historic imperialism is still harming countries in the Latin America as well as they are still underdeveloped. According to Marxist theory “The colonies were used as places to invest surplus capital and sell goods from the colonizing countries and as sources of cheap raw materials and cheap labor.”(P165) Therefore, the investors will always get high benefits from their investment; however, the raw materials will get low prices for it. Hence, still Latin American countries face various problems due to the excessive use of natural resources and due to late from the Europeans
We are largely dependant on copper mining for most of our national income is derived from that activity..The are where we mine are mostly known for the copper and are called the copperbelt.The area also has a great potential for farming but due to the pollution and the large employment intake of the mines,the farming in the area has been subdued. To such lower levels.The people in the area are not very concern about what will happen next should the mines come to an end. The mines have also been working on programmes that will help the inhabitants to live on even after the end of the mines hence the creation of a lot of sports facilities,hospitals and funding a lot more other non mining The people in the area are not concern of the produce in the mine apart from the fact that the mine will employ them.they only get to get the produce from the other products thqt are manufuctured using
The country of Uganda is a struggling nation and has adversities with their living conditions, economy, and politics. Uganda uses a republic form of government. It has a mixed legal system of English common law and customary law. The country has a plethora of natural resources “including fertile soils, regular rainfall, small deposits of copper, gold, and other minerals, and recently discovered oil” (“CIA World Factbook”).The country itself has the potential to become wealthy and more powerful, but before you can access and use these resources, you first need to improve the living conditions for the people of the country. In order to do this the country is currently attempting to stabilize the economy by undertaking an economic reform. However, “unreliable power, high energy costs, inadequate transportation infrastructure, and corruption inhibit economic development and investor confidence”(CIA World Factbook). Once again, many small things need to be changed and fixed before the achievement of the final goal of improving the economy is remotely possible. Overall the...
Nothing speaks more to Latin America 's continued dependence on other nations than a new superpower looking for resource 's. China, much like the USSR of the past has turned to Latin America in search of an economic boost and legitimacy on the world stage. Jorge I. Domínguez writes ”China has disproportionate leverage over Latin America in trade negotiations”. For nations who have existed for almost as long as the USA why are they still so underdeveloped and dependent on the rest of the
Unlike the North – a term in vogue today, among others, for highlighting the difference between the rich, industrialised nations of mostly Western Europe, North America, Australasia, and the rudimentary economies of Latin America, Asia and Africa – underdevelopment, characterised by low income levels, poverty, low living standards and other socio-economic ills seem to be a defining feature of countries in these regions, collectively described as the Global South. Thomas (2003), Hershberg and Moreno-Brid(2003), and, Solimano(2005) suggest, for instance, that the socio - economic structure of most Latin American countries remains defined by vast inequalities in income and wealth distribution, poverty, volatile growth, high mortality rate and a high level of economic vulnerability. In Asia, a number of countries including the large economies of India and China have made improvements in the 21st century in terms of reducing poverty. Yet, 22% of the developing countries in Asia live on a dollar a day . The situation is bleaker in the South and Southeast Asia region where 38% leave on less than a dollar a day and over 48% of the population living below the regions individual country poverty line . Likewise, absolute poverty is on the rise in Africa - generally recognised as the world’s richest continent in terms of natural resources - despite a recorded decline in global poverty rates (Bhattacharyya: 2005).
Since Congo’s independence in 1960, its history has been marked by a series of political conflicts. The economy of Congo, a nation endowed with resources of vast potential wealth has declined drastically since the mid-1980s. The two political conflicts (first and second Congo wars), which began in 1996, have dramatically reduced national output and government revenue, have increased external debt, and have resulted in deaths of more than one million people.
...lows economic development. Because revenues from resource exportation are misappropriated, the state never encourages a domestic culture of entrepreneurship or attempts to diversify its economy in a manner suitable to inuring it from the boom-bust cycle of the international economy.
According to statistics, there are several benefits and disadvantages of mining related to the economic sector. Some of the main benefits of mining are that it leads the economy to expansion and decreases poverty. It also helps in improving and increasing employment by proving more jobs. Moreover, the economic demand for goods and services makes the economy of local communities thrive. However, when it comes to justice, there are many things in which the industry sector falls behind. For example, “Mor...
The authors collected and analysed data from 71 mining areas in Australia, and then they use statistical method to find relationship between gross value of mineral production and quality of life indicators. They found that mining activities have positive impact on regional income, employment, communication access and education. In contrast it has negative impact on life expectancy. The main limitation of this paper is that there is no causality test between all of life indicators as an independent variables and mining activity as dependent variable. In this case the authors only focus to show positive or negative relation between dependent and independent variables. They main recommendation to solve the problems is to do causality test between variables. Furthermore they also suggest to provide comprehensive measurement on other indicator. The result of this paper have strong connection with the Garmett’s article. This paper will be a good source for my article
Peru is a developing country, it had a poor transportation network and limited agriculture due to natural disasters such as earthquakes, landslides, and El Niño rains. Having a less developed transportation network and limited agriculture limits the amount of exported goods, resulting in the country having to rely mainly on imported goods. The main resources that the country imports is food, transportation supplies and consumer
Latin American and Caribbean are one of the richest countries when it comes to natural resources. The natural resources that they have are some of the most useful ones in the world and that consists of gold, oil, iron, sugar and many more. World Bank stated that “Latin America produced around 80 percent of the world's silver in the 16th through 19th centuries, fueling the monetary systems of not only Europe, but China and India as well”. This shows that Latin America had so much natural resources that others depended on them. Since Latin America and the Caribbean has all of this resources, they need to develop their production and raise their GDP. Also there are no investments or any business in these countries to make use of the resources
Throughout the chapter the text exerts more emphasis on the economical evaluation of a country's development rather than the alternative method. It begins to branch off quickly into the classification of countries deriving new topics all relating back to the economical approach. Beginning this discussion is the topic of underdevelopment.