Read all posts for ‘Resource curse’

Initially, the thought of large-scale mining in Australia saddens me, imagining the inevitable scar it will leave on the landscape. Although I am not an indigenous Australian, I can imagine this sentiment must be much stronger for peoples who believe they do not own the Earth, but rather, they are […]

Russia is cursed with its resources: the oil and gas industry is growing so fast that 50% of the federal budget and three quarters of exports depend on its production. It seems that the country does not produce anything, but just relies on its natural resources.  At the same time […]

Officeworkers had a half-day, schoolchildren were let out early—crowds formed below a large screen looking over a traffic roundabout in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. It was March 22, 2012, and Bangladesh was competing in cricket against Pakistan for the Asian Cup. After a tense game, Bangladesh ended only three […]

Can an economic model to support future generations of Chileans be based on a nonrenewable natural resource?  Or will it become yet another example of the resource curse? For the last 150 years copper has been the backbone of the Chilean economy. Chile has been able to defeat underdevelopment and […]

European interests in postwar Libya – oil, sales of arms and halting immigration – are likely to prevail over any humanitarian concerns and sap at the foundations of any fledgling democracy. Over-endowment in natural resources is often a domestic source of dysfunctional and despotic government. However, a “resource curse” often […]