The Political Economy of the Natural Resource Curse: A Survey of Theory and Evidence

This survey focuses on political economy theories of the resource curse and scrutinizes how well, or poorly, these theories have been integrated with empirical work. One reason why this integration is important lies in the practical importance of pinning down the causal links involved in the resource curse. A second reason for focusing on integration of theory and empirics is that the resource curse is a potentially fruitful venue for testing political economy theories generally.