natural resources, institutions, and economic growth...2 natural resources, institutional quality,...
TRANSCRIPT
![Page 1: Natural Resources, Institutions, and Economic Growth...2 Natural Resources, Institutional Quality, and Growth Starting with the observation that resource-abundant countries are often](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022052016/602e47f59d656d4ce718b2c2/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Policy Research Working Paper 8153
Natural Resources, Institutions, and Economic Growth
The Case of Nigeria
Anna K. Raggl
Macroeconomics and Fiscal Management Global Practice GroupJuly 2017
WPS8153P
ublic
Dis
clos
ure
Aut
horiz
edP
ublic
Dis
clos
ure
Aut
horiz
edP
ublic
Dis
clos
ure
Aut
horiz
edP
ublic
Dis
clos
ure
Aut
horiz
ed
![Page 2: Natural Resources, Institutions, and Economic Growth...2 Natural Resources, Institutional Quality, and Growth Starting with the observation that resource-abundant countries are often](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022052016/602e47f59d656d4ce718b2c2/html5/thumbnails/2.jpg)
Produced by the Research Support Team
Abstract
The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.
Policy Research Working Paper 8153
This paper is a product of the Macroeconomics and Fiscal Management Global Practice Group and is a background paper for the Nigeria Growth and Competitiveness Report, entitled Towards Sustainable Growth in Nigeria: Empirical Analysis and Policy Options. Vols. 1 and 2. It is part of a larger effort by the World Bank to provide open access to its research and make a contribution to development policy discussions around the world. Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at http://econ.worldbank.org. The author may be contacted at [email protected].
Using growth regressions with panel data, this study iden-tifies the determinants of economic growth, highlighting in particular the role of natural resources and institutional quality. The overarching aim of this exercise is to learn about the drivers of growth in Nigeria, and to predict growth rates of gross domestic product per capita for the country under different scenarios. This study finds that a
growth-enhancing effect of natural resources is tied to a sound institutional environment and low levels of corrup-tion. Accumulation of human as well as physical capital, but also the quality of institutions and natural resource rents are estimated to be particular important ingredi-ents for a prosperous economic development in Nigeria.
![Page 3: Natural Resources, Institutions, and Economic Growth...2 Natural Resources, Institutional Quality, and Growth Starting with the observation that resource-abundant countries are often](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022052016/602e47f59d656d4ce718b2c2/html5/thumbnails/3.jpg)
Natural Resources, Institutions, and Economic Growth: The
Case of Nigeria
Anna K. Raggl∗
Keywords: Economic growth, natural resources, institutions, Nigeria.
JEL Classification Codes: O13, O47, Q32, P48, O55.
∗Foreign Research Division, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (OeNB). Email: [email protected]. The opinionsare strictly those of the author and in no way commit the OeNB. This study was written in the course of a consultancyto the World Bank while the author held a position at the University of Salzburg. The author is grateful for valuablecomments from Dilek Aykut, Santiago Herrera, Carolina Lennon, and an anonymous referee.
![Page 4: Natural Resources, Institutions, and Economic Growth...2 Natural Resources, Institutional Quality, and Growth Starting with the observation that resource-abundant countries are often](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022052016/602e47f59d656d4ce718b2c2/html5/thumbnails/4.jpg)
1 Introduction
After the discovery of oil in Nigeria in 1956, the country started oil production in 1958, and soon
after became the main oil exporting nation on the African continent. In spite of the oil boom in the
1970s, the expected prosperity was failing to appear. GDP per capita (constant) was stagnating.
It did not improve significantly and sustainably until the mid 2000s, and only caught up with
the Sub-Saharan African average in 2010. Other indicators of economic development have been
following a similar pattern—the share of people living below $1 per day increased from 36% in
1970 to a staggering 70% in 2000, and at the same time the share of extremely wealthy individuals
grew, such that the income distribution widened considerably1.
An additional characteristic of Nigeria’s development is the volatility of its growth rates. While
its average GDP per capita growth rate was just over 1% between 1980 and 2014, the standard
deviation was close to 7.5, which is higher than in other Sub-Saharan African countries, and in
other oil-producing nations (see Table A.1 in the Appendix).
Ever since the important contribution by Sachs and Warner (1995), in which a negative influ-
ence of natural resource wealth on economic development was shown empirically, Nigeria’s lack
of development was attributed to its oil-abundance, and accompanying Dutch disease effects. van
der Ploeg (2011), however, remarks that ”[i]t is hard to maintain that the standard Dutch disease
story of worsening competitiveness of the non-oil-export sector fully explains [Nigeria’s] miserable
economic performance”. Empirical research by Sala-i-Martin and Subramanian (2003, 2013) backs
up that presumption: natural resources have a deteriorating impact on the quality of institutions,
and through that channel natural resources harm economic development, even in the absence of
Dutch-disease effects.
This data-based analysis aims at re-investigating the causes for Nigeria’s growth performance.
Using panel data of close to 150 countries during 1970 and 2014, we assess the determinants of
GDP per capita growth, highlighting in particular the role of natural resources and institutional
quality. Long-term, cross-sectional analyses are performed in addition, in order to carefully take
into account that institutional quality measures are prone to endogeneity and measurement errors
by using Two-Stage-Least-Squares estimators. The ultimate aim of the analysis is to learn about
the drivers of growth in Nigeria, and to assess the country’s future growth potential. Therefore,
various interaction terms in the panel setting allow a deviating impact of several factors in Nigeria
as compared to the rest of the sample. These estimations are used to project GDP per capita
growth rates for Nigeria under different scenarios.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 summarizes existing literature
on the resource-growth nexus, and the relevance of the institutional environment of countries in
this context. Before the estimation results are presented in Section 5, Sections 3 and 4 outline the
1Data on poverty rates are taken from van der Ploeg (2011), and developments in income inequality from Sala-i-Martin and Subramanian (2003).
2
![Page 5: Natural Resources, Institutions, and Economic Growth...2 Natural Resources, Institutional Quality, and Growth Starting with the observation that resource-abundant countries are often](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022052016/602e47f59d656d4ce718b2c2/html5/thumbnails/5.jpg)
estimation strategies and describe the data that are used in the analysis. Drawing on the results of
the growth regressions, Nigeria’s growth rates are predicted assuming different scenarios in Section
6. Section 7 concludes.
2 Natural Resources, Institutional Quality, and Growth
Starting with the observation that resource-abundant countries are often performing worse than
resource-poor countries, Sachs and Warner (1995) study empirically the impact of natural resources
on economic growth using worldwide cross country data. In their seminal contribution, they find
evidence for a detrimental effect of natural resources on growth, and in subsequent studies they
further confirm the robustness of this result2—a controversial finding that triggered an ongoing
scholarly discussion about the curse and the blessing of natural resources.
In response, various analyses were dedicated to deepen the understanding of this result, and
in particular, to identify the mechanisms through which natural resources result in low economic
growth rates. One of the most common arguments is that high shares of natural resources can lead
to overvaluations of the real exchange rates. A consequential contraction of the tradable sector can
weaken economies’ development prospects, especially if this sector exerts economies of scale, by
learning-by-doing, for example (Torvik, 2001; Atkinson and Hamilton, 2003). Sachs and Warner
(1995, 1997, 2001) mainly attribute their empirical findings to these so-called Dutch-disease effects.
Another strand of the literature argues that natural resources may lead to a ”crowding-out”
of investment in human capital. Strong primary sectors lower the incentives to dedicate sufficient
resources to other, more education-intensive sectors. Gylfason, Herbertsson, and Zoega (1999)
highlight that school enrollment rates are lower in countries with a high share of the labor force
engaged in the primary sector. Low human capital accumulation can translate into poor growth
rates—directly via the channel of productivity, or through indirect effects on political stability,
health, or democracy. Empirical evidence suggests, that a considerable part of the negative impact
of natural resources on growth can be attributed to lower educational attainment in resource-
abundant countries (Gylfason, 2001).
Rampant rent-seeking behavior is a further often-investigated transmission mechanism. The
rents generated by natural resources cause an increased number of agents engaged in rent-seeking,
as opposed to pursuing productive activities, and this voracity effect destroys the rents generated
by natural resources. Lane and Tornell (1996), for example, develop a model that shows that in
countries with powerful groups and low institutional quality, growth rates reduce due to natural
resource windfalls, as higher productivity increases the demand for transfers, and these redistribu-
tional effects may outweigh the growth-enhancing effects of resource endowments. Hodler (2006)
provides theoretical as well as empirical evidence that increased rent-seeking behavior weakens
2See Sachs and Warner (1997) and Sachs and Warner (2001).
3
![Page 6: Natural Resources, Institutions, and Economic Growth...2 Natural Resources, Institutional Quality, and Growth Starting with the observation that resource-abundant countries are often](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022052016/602e47f59d656d4ce718b2c2/html5/thumbnails/6.jpg)
property rights, and that in turn further reduces the attractiveness of productive activities. The
more rivaling groups, i.e. the higher the fractionalization in the countries, the more likely it is,
that natural resources are a curse, as opposed to a blessing.3
While the rent-seeking and the Dutch disease hypotheses claim an unconditional negative influ-
ence of natural resources on growth (Mehlum, Moene, and Torvik, 2006), there is a large literature
that tied the negative relationship to certain conditions, most importantly the institutional environ-
ment and corruption in the countries. The contribution by Bulte, Damania, and Deacon (2005) is
among the first studies investigating the inter-relationship between natural resources, institutions,
and economic and human development. While they find only limited evidence for a direct effect
of natural resources on human development, evidence for an indirect link via institutional quality
is presented. Similarly, Mehlum, Moene, and Torvik (2006) confirm a negative direct effect of
natural resources on growth, but conclude that the combination of ”grabber friendly” institutions
and natural resources harms growth, whereas ”producer friendly” institutions help materializing
the full benefits of resources.4
A final important literature, related to the discussed influence of institutional quality, and the
rent-seeking hypothesis, is the role played by corruption. Leite and Weidmann (1999), and more
recently Badinger and Nindl (2014), show, that natural resources facilitate corruption. Again,
the strength of this link has been tied to the countries’ institutional environments. Resource
rents appear to mainly increase corruption levels, if countries have a comparably low polity-score,
a measure of the degree of democracy in a country (Bhattacharyya and Hodler, 2010). Stable
democracies—Norway, Australia, and Canada are named as examples—do not suffer from these
adverse effects, as their institutions prohibit rent-seeking behavior to a large degree.
AGO
ARGAUSAUT
BDI
BEN
BFA
BGDBGR
BOLBRA
BRB
BTN
BWA
CAF
CANCHE
CHL
CHN
CIV
CMR
COGCOL
COM
CPV
CRICYPDEU
DJI
DNK
DOM
ECU
EGY
ESP
ETHFIN
FJIFRA
GAB
GBR GHA
GINGMB GNBGRCGTM
HND
IDNIND
IRL
IRN
IRQ
ISR
ITAJAM
JORJPN
KEN
KOR
LAO
LBR
LKA
LSOMAR
MDG
MEXMLI
MNGMOZ
MRT
MUS
MWI
MYS
NAM
NER
NGANLD
NORNPL
NZL
PAKPAN
PERPHL
POL
PRT PRY QAT
ROMRWA
SAU
SENSLESLV
SUR
SWE
SWZ
SYR
TCD
TGO
THA
TTO
TUNTURTZA
UGAURY
USA
VENZAF
ZAR
ZMB
ZWE
NGA
-20
24
68
GD
P p
er c
apita
gro
wth
, 198
0-20
14
0 20 40 60 80Natural resources, share in GDP
AGO
ARGAUSAUT
BGR
BOLBRA CAN
CHL
CHN
CIV
CMR
COGCOL
DEUDNK ECU
EGY
ESPFRA
GAB
GBRGHA
GTM
IDNIND
IRN
IRQ
ISR
ITA
JPN
MAR
MEX
MYS
NGANLD
NORNZL
PAK
PERPHL
POL
QAT
ROM
SAU
SWE SYR
TCD
THA
TTO
TUNTUR
USA
VEN
ZAR
NGA
-20
24
68
GD
P p
er c
apita
gro
wth
, 198
0-20
14
0 20 40 60 80Oil rents, share in GDP
Figure 1 – Correlation between natural resource shares in GDP (left) and oil shares in GDP (right, only ifoil rents positive) and GDP per capita growth
3See also Baland and Francois (2000); Torvik (2002) for more rent-seeking models.4Brunnschweiler (2008) offers similar findings, using an alternative measure of resource-abundance.
4
![Page 7: Natural Resources, Institutions, and Economic Growth...2 Natural Resources, Institutional Quality, and Growth Starting with the observation that resource-abundant countries are often](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022052016/602e47f59d656d4ce718b2c2/html5/thumbnails/7.jpg)
AGO
ARG
AUSAUT
BDI
BEN
BFABGD
BGRBOL
BRA
BRB
BTN
BWA
CAF
CANCHE
CHL
CHN
CIV
CMR
COG
COLCOM
CPVCRI
CYP
DEU
DJI
DNK
DOM ECU
EGY
ESP
ETH
FIN
FJI
FRA
GAB
GBR
GHA
GIN
GMB
GNB
GRC
GTM
HND
IDN
IND
IRL
IRNIRQ
ISR
ITA
JAM
JOR
JPN
KEN
KOR
LAO
LBR
LKA
LSO
MARMDG
MEXMLIMNG
MOZ MRT
MUS
MWI
MYS
NAMNER
NGA
NLD NOR
NPL
NZL
PAK
PAN
PERPHL
POL
PRT
PRY
QAT
ROM
RWA
SAU
SEN
SLESLV
SUR
SWE
SWZ
SYR
TCD
TGO
THA
TTO
TUNTUR
TZA
UGA
URY
USA
VEN
ZAF
ZAR
ZMB
ZWE
NGA
020
4060
8010
0R
ule
of la
w
0 20 40 60 80Natural resources, share in GDP
AGO
ARG
AUS
AUT
BDI
BENBFA
BGD
BGR
BOL
BRA
BRB
BTN
BWA
CAF
CANCHE
CHL
CHN
CIV
CMR COG
COL
COM
CPV
CRI
CYP
DEU
DJI
DNK
DOM
ECU
EGY
ESP
ETH
FIN
FJI
FRA
GAB
GBR
GHA
GIN
GMB
GNB
GRC
GTM HND
IDN
IND
IRL
IRN
IRQ
ISR
ITA JAM
JOR
JPN
KEN
KOR
LAO
LBR
LKALSO
MAR
MDG
MEXMLI
MNGMOZ
MRT
MUS
MWI
MYS
NAM
NER
NGA
NLDNOR
NPL
NZL
PAK
PANPER
PHL
POL
PRT
PRY
QAT
ROM
RWA
SAU
SEN
SLE
SLV
SUR
SWE
SWZ
SYRTCD
TGOTHA
TTO
TUN
TUR TZA
UGA
URY USA
VEN
ZAF
ZAR
ZMB
ZWE
NGA
020
4060
80C
orru
ptio
n
0 20 40 60 80Natural resources, share in GDP
Figure 2 – Correlation between natural resource abundance and institutional indicators: rule of law (left)and corruption (right)
Figure 1 provides a graphical representation of long-term GDP per capita growth rates and
natural resource rents as well as oil rents (both measured as shares in GDP). It is apparent, that no
correlation between long-term growth and natural resources can be detected. There are high-growth
countries—such as the Asian tigers—that are poorly endowed with natural resources, whereas
countries rich in resources—Nigeria, Liberia, the Republic of Congo, or Republica Bolivariana
de Venezuela are examples—lack long-term economic progress. Recent research stresses the role
of institutions in the growth-resource-nexus. The graphs in Figure 2 attempt to find descriptive
evidence for a correlation between resource endowments and institutional quality. The correlation
is remarkable: Resource-rich countries, among them Nigeria, are associated with lower average
institutional quality and higher levels of corruption (based on long-term averages of the variables),
supporting the presumption that resources can deteriorate institutional quality and promote rent-
seeking and corruption.
Based on the current state of the literature, and on the important work by Sala-i-Martin
and Subramanian (2003, 2013), this study addresses the determinants of GDP per capita growth,
focusing in particular on the role played by natural resources, institutions, and corruption, and
highlights the growth prospects for Nigeria in a global setting.
3 Empirical Setting
Panel fixed effects estimations The main results of this analysis and the ingredients for
the out-of-sample predictions of Nigeria’s growth rates are based on cross country panel growth
regressions. The real per capita growth rate in country i and period t, git, is regressed on a variable
expressing natural resource abundance, institutional quality (Iit), and a set of covariates X, and
the basic specification can be characterized as
5
![Page 8: Natural Resources, Institutions, and Economic Growth...2 Natural Resources, Institutional Quality, and Growth Starting with the observation that resource-abundant countries are often](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022052016/602e47f59d656d4ce718b2c2/html5/thumbnails/8.jpg)
git = α+ β log
(GDPi,t−1
POPi,t−1
)+ γf
(NATitGDPit
)+ δIit +Xη + µi + νt + εit (1)
where α is a constant, µi and νt are country and period fixed effects, and εit is the remaining
error term. In particular the country fixed effects that control for time-invariant characteristics
inherent to the countries are important components in this setting, because they limit potential
unobserved heterogeneity biases.5 In order to limit the chance of business cycles and short term
GDP fluctuations distorting the results, t corresponds to five-year periods and the variables enter
as five-year averages or initial values of the respective period.6 Important control variables that are
included in the matrix X are human capital, investment, government consumption, the openness
of the countries, as well as a measure for the undervaluation of the currency. In all specifications,
a measure of natural resources is included. In a simple setting, we control for the share of total
natural resource rents in GDP. In order to allow for heterogeneous effects, we decompose that
variable into rents from oil and non-oil natural resources. As the effects of oil rents on GDP per
capita growth may be non-linear, the oil rents variable is split into four quartiles in a third setting.
The underlying hypothesis is that the degree of oil-dependence might affect the contribution of oil
rents to GDP growth rates.
As the major aim of this study is to carve out the main determinants of growth in Nigeria,
several variables are interacted with a Nigeria dummy in order to learn about possible deviating
effects.
Endogeneity The coefficient estimates of the institutional measures (incl. the corruption index)
might be biased in an estimation framework that does not account for endogeneity. Endogeneity
problems could come from various sources. First, both the institutional characteristics and the
growth rates of countries could respond simultaneously to omitted factors. Such factors could
be cultural dispositions, legal frameworks or historical conventions (see for example Mendez and
Sepulveda, 2006). As a panel setting allows to control for country-specific fixed effects, country-
inherent factors that are constant over time are controlled for, and persistent country characteristics
will not cause biased estimates. Second, the estimates could suffer from reversed causality—a
problem that arises when not only corruption influences GDP growth, but also the reverse is true.
Third, the rule of law as well as the corruption indicator are indices, and not precise measurements.
Measurement errors cause biased estimates, when they are correlated with the observed (and
potentially) mis-measured values.
Biased estimates that should not be interpreted causally are the consequences of all described
sources of endogeneity. Several attempts to instrument the institutional variable in a panel setting
were not fruitful due to a lack of credible instruments that vary over time. Instrumental variables
5See for instance Mendez and Sepulveda (2006).6See Table A.2 in the Appendix for detailed description of the variables and the form they enter the estimations.
6
![Page 9: Natural Resources, Institutions, and Economic Growth...2 Natural Resources, Institutional Quality, and Growth Starting with the observation that resource-abundant countries are often](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022052016/602e47f59d656d4ce718b2c2/html5/thumbnails/9.jpg)
that have proved helpful are constant within countries (see below for a discussion of those instru-
ments), and therefore they cannot be used in a panel framework that controls for country fixed
effects. As these country fixed effects help overcoming another important (heterogeneity) bias, the
cost of omitting them is too high. Inspired by recent literature (Werker, Ahmed, and Cohen, 2009;
Nunn and Qian, 2014; Dreher and Langlotz, 2015) on the causal link between aid and growth,
attempts were made to interact presumably excludable, but constant instruments with a variable
that varies over time. The special feature of this strategy is that the second variable that the
excludable instrument is interacted with must not necessarily be exogenous. Although promising
at first, further considerations revealed that the instruments for natural resources proposed in the
literature are not appropriate for such an instrumentation strategy. For this reason, a bias reduc-
tion with two-stage least squares methods seems not feasible in the panel setting and we rely on a
cross-sectional analysis for an attempt to establish causality.
Instrumentation of institutional quality in a non-panel, cross country setting Very
much in the line with the literature on institutional quality and economic growth, the possible
endogeneity of the institutional variable is instrumented in a cross-country, long term growth
setting. The time dimension exploited in the main results, that are based on the panel setting
outlined above, needs to be neglected, and long term averages and initial values of the variables are
used. In this setting, one can draw on the literature for successful instrumentation strategies. Hall
and Jones (1999), for instance, use the fraction of the population speaking English or another major
European language as an instrument for institutional quality, arguing that the language shares
are approximating the exposure to Europe. Using similar arguments, the seminal contribution by
Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson (2001) exploits the variation in mortality rates of early European
settlers in the colonial countries to approximate the foundations of current institutional quality
that have been established in the past by European settlers. Together with the presumption of high
persistence of institutional quality, their instrumentation rests on the assumption that bad living
conditions increased the likelihood of ”‘extractive”’ institutions, whereas a favorable environment
caused settlers to build ”Neo-Europes”. Easterly and Levine (2003) instrument the institutional
variable with ”endowments”, and use settler mortality, latitude, crops/minerals dummies, and a
landlocked dummy.
Using settler mortality as an instrument drastically reduces the number of observations, and
for that reason we are following Hall and Jones (1999) and Sala-i-Martin and Subramanian (2003,
2013) and use English and other European language shares as instrumental variables for the two
indicators for the quality of institutions—the rule of law and a corruption index.
Formally, the growth equations that are estimated have the following form
gi = α+ β log
(GDPi
POPi
)+ γf
(NATiGDPi
)+ δIi +Xη + εi (2)
7
![Page 10: Natural Resources, Institutions, and Economic Growth...2 Natural Resources, Institutional Quality, and Growth Starting with the observation that resource-abundant countries are often](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022052016/602e47f59d656d4ce718b2c2/html5/thumbnails/10.jpg)
Institutional quality and the level of corruption is instrumented with the fraction of people speaking
English and another European language using Two-Stage-Least-Squares (2SLS) estimation. The
corresponding first stage is
Ii = θ0 + θ1Engi + θ2Euri + θ3
(GDPi
POPi
)+ θ4f
(NATiGDPi
)+Xκ+ ui (3)
where Engi and Euri denote the proportion of people in country i, that speak English or another
European language, respectively.
4 Data
Panel analysis The sample used for the panel regressions contains 1,000 observations that rep-
resent 150 countries during 1970 (or later) and 2014 7 The time dimension is reduced to five-year
averages (for log GDP per capita, the initial value is used), in order to net out business cycles and
high short term volatility. One observation indexed (i, t) thus corresponds to a country i and the
average during years t, t+ 4 or the initial value in t. Table A.4 in the Appendix lists the countries
and periods included in detail.
The sources and precise definitions of the variables used are summarized in Table A.2 in the
Appendix. A measure of the real undervaluation of currencies is constructed by the price level
of an economy adjusted by the Balassa-Samuelson effect8 following Rodrik (2008). More specif-
ically, the real effective exchange rate, calculated as the exchange rate over the PPP conversion
factor, is regressed on (the logarithm of) per capita GDP and a set of time dummies. The differ-
ence of the real exchange rate and the predictions from this regression is used as a proxy for real
undervaluation. The resulting index is centered around zero. A positive value indicates under-
valuation, and a negative value indicates overvaluation. Figure 3 shows the natural logarithm of
the undervaluation index for Nigeria, as compared to other Sub-Saharan African oil-exporting and
non-oil-exporting countries. This comparison shows descriptively, that Nigeria’s exchange rates
have been overvalued—considerably so compared to other Sub-Saharan African countries—during
the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s. Only in the mid-2000s, the degree of undervaluation returns to
the Sub-Saharan African average.
In order to measure institutional quality and the level of corruption in the countries, we rely
on the recently established Varieties of Democracy Data Base (Coppedge, Gerring, Lindberg,
Skaaning, Teorell, Tzelgov, Wang, Altman, Bernhard, Fish, Glynn, Hicken, Knutsen, McMann,
Staton, and Zimmermann, 2015), that provides a wide array of indicators related to various aspects
7All figures presented here are lower bounds, and refer to the sample of 1,000 observations in columns (3) to (5)in Table 1 and columns (3) to (5) in Table 2.
8The adjustment accounts for the finding, that increases in income levels lead to a relative price increase ofnon-tradeable goods due to productivity improvements.
8
![Page 11: Natural Resources, Institutions, and Economic Growth...2 Natural Resources, Institutional Quality, and Growth Starting with the observation that resource-abundant countries are often](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022052016/602e47f59d656d4ce718b2c2/html5/thumbnails/11.jpg)
-10
12
3Lo
g(un
derv
alua
tion)
1970 1980 1990 2000 2010Year
Sub-Sahara Africa, oil Nigeria
-10
12
3Lo
g(un
derv
alua
tion)
1970 1980 1990 2000 2010Year
Sub-Sahara Africa, no oil Nigeria
Figure 3 – Log(undervaluation) in Nigeria and other Sub-Saharan-African countries that produce oil (left)and that do not produce oil (right). A positive value indicates an undervaluation, a negative valuean overvaluation of the currency.
of democracy. The indicators chosen for this analysis are a rule of law index (v2xcl rol) and a
corruption index (v2x corr). The former measures the equality before the law and individual
liberty, the transparency and the enforceability of laws, and to what extend citizen have access to
justice, secure property rights, freedom from forced labor, freedom of movement, physical integrity
rights as well as freedom of religion. The corruption index includes measures of distinct types of
corruption, thereby distinguishing between bribery and embezzlement, as well as between the levels
at which corruption takes place—the highest levels as opposed to the public sector at large. It is
calculated as a weighted average of public sector, executive, legislative, judicial corruption indices.9
Both indices in their original forms are normalized between 0 and 1, but had been rescaled for
the analysis to run from 0 to 100 for interpretation purposes. In the panel data application, the
indices enter the regressions as deviations from country-specific means (as country fixed effects are
included, the standardization does not alter the coefficient estimates in any way).
Cross-sectional analysis In order to account for a possible endogeneity of the institutional
variable and the corruption indicator that is not controlled for by country fixed effects in the panel
setting, we estimate long-run growth regressions using only long-term averages and/or initial values
of the variables. The estimation sample consists of 113 countries. The country coverage is lower in
this setting as compared to the panel regressions, because for some countries the time dimension
of the data is not long enough to calculate long-term growth rates. While in the panel setting it is
possible to control for period effects, this cannot be done in this framework, and the data need to
be comparable in order to obtain reliable results. Table A.3 in the Appendix provides an overview
9Please refer to the code book of that data set for a more detailed description (Coppedge, Gerring, Lindberg,Skaaning, Teorell, Tzelgov, Wang, Altman, Bernhard, Fish, Glynn, Hicken, Knutsen, McMann, Staton, and Zim-mermann, 2015).
9
![Page 12: Natural Resources, Institutions, and Economic Growth...2 Natural Resources, Institutional Quality, and Growth Starting with the observation that resource-abundant countries are often](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022052016/602e47f59d656d4ce718b2c2/html5/thumbnails/12.jpg)
over of data used, how they are measured, and which source they are from.
5 Growth Regressions
5.1 Panel Data Analysis
Table 1 presents the elementary specification of the growth regressions using panel data and various
extensions, all including country as well as period fixed effects. The first column allows human and
physical capital, government expenditures, inflation, as well as openness to trade and institutional
quality, measured by the rule of law, to influence GDP per capita growth rates. The inclusion of
initial GDP per capita controls for convergence within countries, i.e. for convergence to a country-
specific long-term equilibrium growth rate. The negative coefficient of initial GDP per capita
confirms that classical convergence hypothesis, as increases in income per capita are followed by
lower growth rates of GDP. Higher human capital, investment shares and trade openness, as well
as good macroeconomic management (low inflation) and low levels of government expenditures are
increasing medium-term growth rates of GDP per capita. Although the coefficient of institutional
quality cannot be interpreted causally due to a potential endogeneity bias, the estimates suggest a
positive relationship between an improved institutional environment and economic development.
The estimated coefficients are not only statistically significant, but also their magnitude shows
non-negligible impacts on economic growth. An increase in the share of upper secondary and
tertiary educated in the labor force by 10%-points is estimated to increase GDP per capita growth
by roughly 0.7%-points. Similarly, based on the results, an increase in the share of investment in
GDP by 10%-points has the potential to raise growth by 1.6%-points.
In columns (2) and (3), natural resource rents are added to the equation. Neither in the
aggregate form, nor when disaggregated into oil and non-oil resource rents a significant impact
can be detected.10 It is likely, that the impact of natural resources is too heterogeneous and/or
depends on additional factors, and only a further refinement can shed light on the role played by
natural resources. As an extension of column (2), Figure 4 presents the estimates of the impact of
natural resources on economic growth when interacted with period dummies. The variation over
time is considerable and might offer an explanation for the insignificance of the natural resource
variable in the previous columns. There is evidence for a heterogeneous effect over time, and it
appears that during the last decade, natural resource rents had a significant (at the 10% level) and
positive impact on economic growth.11
10When splitting the natural resource variable further into oil, natural gas, mineral and forest rents (not displayedin the table), no further insights are gained. While all coefficients but the one for forest rents are positive, none ofthem can be distinguished from zero at a statistically significant level of confidence.
11The exceptionally large effect in the first half of the 1970s could be due to the vast increase in oil prices, butalso to a smaller country-coverage in this early period of the sample.
10
![Page 13: Natural Resources, Institutions, and Economic Growth...2 Natural Resources, Institutional Quality, and Growth Starting with the observation that resource-abundant countries are often](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022052016/602e47f59d656d4ce718b2c2/html5/thumbnails/13.jpg)
Table 1 – Determinants of growth per capita: Panel fixed effects estimations
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
Log(GDP per capita) -4.558∗∗∗ -3.407∗∗∗ -3.442∗∗∗ -3.571∗∗∗ -3.538∗∗∗
(0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)
Education 0.0683∗∗ 0.0510∗∗∗ 0.0451 0.0577∗∗ 0.0492∗
(0.029) (0.009) (0.115) (0.046) (0.087)
Governm. cons. -0.102∗∗ -0.143∗∗∗ -0.0991∗∗∗ -0.0947∗∗∗ -0.0923∗∗
(0.018) (0.000) (0.009) (0.010) (0.015)
Investment 0.162∗∗∗ 0.144∗∗∗ 0.150∗∗∗ 0.153∗∗∗ 0.153∗∗∗
(0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)
Openness 0.0147∗∗ 0.0176∗∗∗ 0.0134∗∗ 0.0107∗ 0.0133∗∗
(0.037) (0.005) (0.029) (0.082) (0.033)
Inflation -0.00271∗∗∗ -0.00185∗∗∗ -0.00159∗∗∗ -0.00154∗∗∗ -0.00154∗∗∗
(0.008) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)
Rule of law 0.0159∗∗ 0.0193∗∗∗ 0.0168∗∗ 0.00479 0.0145∗∗
(0.020) (0.007) (0.014) (0.571) (0.033)
Natural res. 0.0272(0.316)
Oil rents 0.0627 0.106∗∗
(0.144) (0.038)
Non-oil rents 0.0267 -0.121∗∗ 0.0189(0.437) (0.022) (0.544)
Rule of law x oil rents -0.000843(0.325)
Rule of law x non-oil rents 0.00236∗∗∗
(0.000)
Oil rents, 1st qu. 6.753∗∗∗
(0.000)
Oil rents, 2nd qu. 0.757∗∗∗
(0.002)
Oil rents, 3rd qu. 0.151∗∗
(0.012)
Oil rents, 4th qu. 0.0766∗
(0.075)Observations 1031 1004 1000 1000 1000Countries 150 150 150 150 150R2 0.384 0.210 0.293 0.304 0.308
Each specification includes country and period fixed effects, as well as a constant. p-values in parentheses. ∗ p < 0.1, ∗∗
p < 0.05, ∗∗∗ p < 0.01.
Another reason for the lack of a clear relationship for natural resources and growth could be
a missing link to institutional quality. For natural resources to improve growth rates, a stable
institutional environment might be a prerequisite that guarantees a fair distribution of revenues
associated with the rents. When allowing for such an interaction in column (4), it appears that on
11
![Page 14: Natural Resources, Institutions, and Economic Growth...2 Natural Resources, Institutional Quality, and Growth Starting with the observation that resource-abundant countries are often](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022052016/602e47f59d656d4ce718b2c2/html5/thumbnails/14.jpg)
-.20
.2.4
70 75 80 85 90 95 00 05 10
99% CI 95% CI 90% CI
Figure 4 – Impact of natural resources on per capita growth rates, by period
average, oil rents improve growth rates when institutional quality is held constant, whereas rents
from other natural resources require solid institutions for them to be beneficial. It is important
to note again, that as the endogeneity of the institutional variable is not accounted for, causal
interpretations cannot be made.12
In the final column of Table 1, heterogeneities with respect to the countries’ dependence on oil
are allowed for (see also Raggl, 2014, for a similar setting). Therefore, oil rents are interacted with
dummies indicating the quartile of oil rents in GDP that are calculated using the full sample for
each period. The results in column (5) show, that on all levels of oil dependence, oil rents increase
GDP per capita growth rates on average. However, the magnitude of a 1%-point increase in oil
differs considerably across the four levels of oil dependence, and is highest for countries with low
oil dependence. Nigeria is highly dependent on oil, and is allocated to the fourth quartile in all but
12Several attempts to instrument the institution indicators in the panel setting were not fruitful. As commonin the literature, 2SLS estimations are carried out on the cross-sectional, long-term level, that abstracts from thevariation over time in the data (Hall and Jones, 1999; Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson, 2001; Sala-i-Martin andSubramanian, 2003). However, possible endogeneity in the panel framework will not negatively affect the quality ofthe out-of-sample predictions in Section 6, if it is safe to assume that the patterns of endogeneity prevail during thecourse of the prediction period.
12
![Page 15: Natural Resources, Institutions, and Economic Growth...2 Natural Resources, Institutional Quality, and Growth Starting with the observation that resource-abundant countries are often](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022052016/602e47f59d656d4ce718b2c2/html5/thumbnails/15.jpg)
one period, and belongs to the group of countries that exhibit the lowest benefits on average. A
10%-point increase in the share of oil rents in GDP—for Nigeria this would imply an incline from
approximately 16% in GDP in 2010-14 to 26%—is estimated to increase GDP per capita growth
by roughly 0.8-1.5%-points in the third and fourth quartile, respectively. The following paragraph
reviews and discusses results particular for Nigeria in more detail.
A Focus on Nigeria Table 2 displays panel fixed effects estimations that highlight the role of
natural resources and institutional quality in Nigeria. The first column suggests that the impact
of natural resources on growth are significantly lower in Nigeria than in the rest of the sample.
In fact, increases in natural resource rents appear detrimental to growth in the country. In the
second column, an index for the rule of law as a measure of institutional quality is added, and as
a result, the negative impact of natural resources declines in magnitude for Nigeria (from -0.042
to -0.029). These findings are in line with Sala-i-Martin and Subramanian (2003), and provide
evidence for a negative relationship between natural resources and institutional quality. When
omitting institutional quality, and natural resources weaken institutions, then the impact of lower
institutional quality is wrongly attributed to natural resources. Controlling for institutions in
column (2) thus increases the coefficient of resources for Nigeria.
This interdependence between resources and institutions is further confirmed in column (3),
where the addition of another measure of institutional quality, political corruption, leads to a
further (small) increase in the impact of natural resources. The positive impact of corruption in
the full sample has previously been found in the literature, it is summarized as the ”‘greasing
the wheels”’-effect of corruption (Egger and Winner, 2005; Vial and Hanoteau, 2010; Campos,
Dimova, and Saleh, 2010). As in this setting no measures have been undertaken to limit a possible
endogeneity bias, causal interpretations are not justified, however. In columns (4) and (5) the
corruption variable is interacted with a Sub-Saharan Africa dummy and with a Nigeria dummy,
respectively. Apart from the finding that corruption is associated with lower growth in Sub-Saharan
Africa, and even more so in Nigeria13, the effect of natural resources on growth in Nigeria further
increases (column 4) and becomes positive in column (5). This latter finding suggests, that in
particular in Nigeria, there is a strong connection between natural resources and corruption, and
when controlling for this link, resource rents do no longer harm, but foster economic growth. The
negative impact of natural resources in Nigeria found in the previous specifications appears to be
driven by the high levels of corruption associated with the country’s resource wealth, and in order
to enable natural resources to be beneficial for growth a stable institutional environment is crucial.
Distinguishing between the oil and non-oil rents in GDP in column (6) reveals, that both oil
and non-oil resource rents are stimulating economic growth in Nigeria. Although Nigeria is an
13The coefficient for Nigeria appears particularly large. However, when interpreting the effect in terms of standarddeviations, the effect is still considerable, but less pronounced. A one standard deviation increase in the corruptionindicator reduces growth by 0.8 standard deviations.
13
![Page 16: Natural Resources, Institutions, and Economic Growth...2 Natural Resources, Institutional Quality, and Growth Starting with the observation that resource-abundant countries are often](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022052016/602e47f59d656d4ce718b2c2/html5/thumbnails/16.jpg)
Table 2 – Determinants of growth per capita: Panel fixed effects estimations, focus on Nigeria
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7)
Log(GDP per capita) -3.157∗∗∗ -3.376∗∗∗ -3.313∗∗∗ -3.416∗∗∗ -3.235∗∗∗ -3.312∗∗∗ -3.403∗∗∗
(0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)
Education 0.0518∗ 0.0431 0.0521∗ 0.0454∗ 0.0502∗ 0.0540∗ 0.0584∗∗
(0.067) (0.122) (0.054) (0.078) (0.060) (0.051) (0.036)
Governm. cons. -0.139∗∗ -0.0969∗∗ -0.0898∗∗ -0.0821∗∗ -0.0849∗∗ -0.0848∗∗ -0.0785∗∗
(0.023) (0.011) (0.025) (0.031) (0.033) (0.031) (0.048)
Investment 0.191∗∗∗ 0.145∗∗∗ 0.147∗∗∗ 0.150∗∗∗ 0.151∗∗∗ 0.158∗∗∗ 0.161∗∗∗
(0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)
Openness 0.0162∗∗∗ 0.0141∗∗ 0.0137∗∗ 0.0127∗∗ 0.0127∗∗ 0.0119∗ 0.0117∗
(0.009) (0.021) (0.029) (0.045) (0.039) (0.057) (0.064)
Inflation -0.0015∗∗∗ -0.0016∗∗∗ -0.0016∗∗∗ -0.0016∗∗∗ -0.0016∗∗∗ -0.0016∗∗∗ -0.0016∗∗∗
(0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)
Rule of law 0.0164∗∗ 0.0204∗∗∗ 0.0224∗∗∗ 0.0205∗∗∗ 0.0212∗∗∗ 0.0190∗∗∗
(0.017) (0.002) (0.002) (0.002) (0.002) (0.004)
Rule of law x NGA 0.0406∗∗∗ 0.0731∗∗∗ 0.0932∗∗∗
(0.003) (0.000) (0.000)
Corruption 0.0284∗∗ 0.0517∗∗∗ 0.0295∗∗ 0.0334∗∗ 0.0338∗∗
(0.039) (0.001) (0.032) (0.015) (0.011)
Corruption x SSA -0.0659∗∗
(0.044)
Corruption x NGA -4.578∗∗∗ -3.593∗∗∗ -3.203∗∗∗
(0.000) (0.000) (0.000)
Natural res. 0.0721∗ 0.0439 0.0413 0.0449∗ 0.0425(0.082) (0.108) (0.123) (0.083) (0.112)
Nat. res. x NGA -0.114∗∗∗ -0.0730∗∗ -0.0675∗∗ -0.0665∗∗ 0.0967∗∗∗
(0.007) (0.020) (0.029) (0.026) (0.001)
Oil rents 0.0758∗
(0.087)
Oil rents x NGA -0.0504 -0.0400(0.323) (0.444)
Non-oil rents 0.0193 0.0114(0.584) (0.720)
Non-oil rents x NGA 0.675∗∗∗ 0.780∗∗∗
(0.000) (0.001)
Oil rents, 1st qu. 6.815∗∗∗
(0.000)
Oil rents, 2nd qu. 0.737∗∗∗
(0.002)
Oil rents, 3rd qu. 0.161∗∗∗
(0.007)
Oil rents, 4th qu. 0.0880∗∗
(0.048)
Observations 1088 1004 1004 1004 1004 1000 1000Countries 166 150 150 150 150 150 150R2 0.352 0.292 0.299 0.307 0.310 0.314 0.328
Each specification includes country and period fixed effects, as well as a constant. p-values in parentheses. ∗ p < 0.1, ∗∗
p < 0.05, ∗∗∗ p < 0.01.
14
![Page 17: Natural Resources, Institutions, and Economic Growth...2 Natural Resources, Institutional Quality, and Growth Starting with the observation that resource-abundant countries are often](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022052016/602e47f59d656d4ce718b2c2/html5/thumbnails/17.jpg)
economy highly dependent on oil, after controlling for both institutional quality indicators, oil
rents are contributing to growth in the country.
The impact of the rule of law indicator does not change when interactions between resources
and Nigeria dummies are included, nor when the corruption variable is added. Although no causal
interpretation can be made in this setting, improvements of institutional quality within countries
are associated with higher GDP per capita growth rates. Columns (5) to (7) of Table 2 allow
for a deviating coefficient of the rule of law measures in Nigeria as compared to the rest of the
sample. The results suggest, that the connection between the rule of law and GDP growth is
particularly relevant in the country, even when an additional measure of institutional quality,
political corruption, is controlled for. Therefore, both dimensions of institutional quality should
thus be addressed in order to smooth the way for sustainable growth, and a growth-enhancing
effect of Nigeria’s natural resources.
Further results Table A.5 in the Appendix provides additional results related to the growth
determinants in Nigeria. First, the impact of human capital on economic development is stronger
when the level of GDP per capita is comparably small. In other words, the growth-enhancing
effect of educational expansions is higher in developing countries. This result is underlined by
the findings in column (2), where the effect of education is allowed to differ between Nigeria and
the rest of the sample. It appears, that human capital accumulation is of particular importance
for growth in the country. The variable is measured as the share of people with upper secondary
education or more in the age group 20 to 64. An expansion of secondary and tertiary education is
estimated to be a fruitful strategy to enhance economic progress in the long run.
Second, a measure of the undervaluation of a currency, as suggested by Rodrik (2008) and
discussed in more detail in the Data section, is included in the specifications (3) to (5) of Table A.5.
Rodrik (2008) finds a significant and positive relationship between the degree of undervaluation of
a currency and economic growth, and he argues and shows empirically that the impact is especially
high in countries with low incomes per capita.
When interacting the measure of undervaluation with a Nigeria dummy variable, the effect for
the country is positive and significant. If, to a certain extent, the impact of natural resources on
growth is channeled through overvaluations of the real exchange rates (Dutch disease effects), then
an inclusion of a measure of undervaluation should improve the growth impact of natural resources.
In other worlds, if the degree of undervaluation of a currency is held constant, the impact of natural
resources should be more positive (less negative), as the negative effect via the exchange rate is
controlled for. This can be observed for Nigeria. The impact of natural resources on growth turns
positive, once controlled for undervaluation. For oil rents, the impact is still negative (columns
4 and 5), but considerably closer to zero compared to estimations without the undervaluation
measure. This implies that there is evidence for Dutch disease effects in Nigeria, and policies that
15
![Page 18: Natural Resources, Institutions, and Economic Growth...2 Natural Resources, Institutional Quality, and Growth Starting with the observation that resource-abundant countries are often](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022052016/602e47f59d656d4ce718b2c2/html5/thumbnails/18.jpg)
are directed towards the prevention of strong currency overvaluation could improve the growth
effects of natural resources. The magnitude of the effect of undervaluation on growth is non-
negligible in Nigeria: an increase in the undervaluation index by 1% is estimated to raise growth
rates by 0.06%-points (all relevant columns 3–5 in Table A.5), that could correspond to an increase
from a 4% to a 4.06% growth rate. Similarly, an increase in the undervaluation index by 10%—not
an unrealistic change given the large fluctuations—could improve GDP per capita growth rates by
0.6%-points. This finding is robust across different specifications, that include various alternating
measures of natural resources.
In order to highlight the potential of a less overvalued currency, Figure A.1 in the Appendix
presents the estimated growth impact of a steady improvement of the undervaluation index towards
the values estimated for the mid-1960s between 2010-14 and 2040-44. Nigeria had long periods of
a severely overvalued currency from the 1970s until the early 2000s. Currently, the undervaluation
is no longer negative, the index suggests even a slight undervaluation of the currency. Assuming
that the undervaluation index continuously improves in the future, until by the period 2040-44
it reaches the level of 1965-69 (0.38), GDP per capita growth rates could improve by more than
1%-point on average in the long run.
5.2 Cross-sectional Analysis
The results of the long-term growth analysis that instrument the institutional variable and the
corruption indicator are presented in Table 3. The top panel displays the second stage of the
2SLS estimations, in which the rule of law indicator is instrumented, whereas the bottom panel
displays the results for the corruption variable14. The first two columns refer to OLS results,
and columns (3) to (7) to 2SLS results. In the first specification (column 1), the institutional
variables are omitted, and natural resource rents are not significant in the growth regressions.
Controlling for the rule of law and the corruption index, respectively, results in a positive and
significant coefficient of the resource variable. This finding is in line with the results of the panel
analysis, and suggests a link between natural resources and institutional quality. Natural resources
are associated with lower institutional quality, and that negatively affects growth rates. As soon
as institutions are held constant, the impact of natural resources turns positive and significant.
Instrumenting the rule of law and corruption does not change the significance nor the sign of
the variables. If anything, their impact becomes more pronounced. This result holds for various
model specifications, the inclusion of variables related to macroeconomic management, a currency
undervaluation index, life expectancy and geographical characteristics. Further confirming the
panel data results, the coefficient of the oil rents for highly oil-dependent countries (oil rents >
median) is lower as compared to the coefficient for low oil-dependence.
14Due to the high collinearity and the increased standard errors resulting from the 2SLS estimation, both indicatorsare treated in two separate regressions.
16
![Page 19: Natural Resources, Institutions, and Economic Growth...2 Natural Resources, Institutional Quality, and Growth Starting with the observation that resource-abundant countries are often](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022052016/602e47f59d656d4ce718b2c2/html5/thumbnails/19.jpg)
Table 3 – Determinants of long-term growth: 2SLS estimations using cross-sectional data
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7)OLS OLS 2SLS 2SLS 2SLS 2SLS 2SLS
Rule of law 0.0217∗∗ 0.0857∗∗∗ 0.0871∗∗ 0.0717∗∗ 0.0850∗∗ 0.0844∗∗
(2.40) (2.65) (2.53) (2.15) (2.21) (2.21)
Log(GDP per capita) -0.684∗∗∗ -0.800∗∗∗ -1.142∗∗∗ -1.100∗∗∗ -1.348∗∗∗ -1.596∗∗∗ -1.593∗∗∗
(-4.18) (-4.91) (-3.83) (-3.54) (-4.37) (-3.60) (-3.61)
Natural res. 0.0132 0.0210∗∗ 0.0443∗∗∗ 0.0419∗∗∗ 0.0418∗∗∗
(1.28) (2.23) (2.89) (2.61) (2.85)
Oil rents 0.0586∗∗
(2.43)
Oil rents < median 0.145(0.64)
Oil rents > median 0.0586∗∗
(2.44)
Non-oil rents 0.0180 0.0179(1.22) (1.21)
Observations 113 113 113 113 113 113 113Hansen J 1.879 1.932 1.802 1.248 1.274p-value 0.170 0.165 0.180 0.264 0.259Kleibergen-Paap 8.592 7.157 7.404 6.758 6.865p-value 0.014 0.028 0.025 0.034 0.032
Corruption -0.0280∗∗∗ -0.0496∗∗∗ -0.0469∗∗∗ -0.0380∗∗∗ -0.0369∗∗∗ -0.0363∗∗∗
(-4.17) (-2.80) (-3.81) (-3.19) (-2.91) (-2.93)
Log(GDP per capita) -0.684∗∗∗ -0.822∗∗∗ -0.929∗∗∗ -0.852∗∗∗ -1.156∗∗∗ -1.231∗∗∗ -1.228∗∗∗
(-4.18) (-5.14) (-5.06) (-5.09) (-5.92) (-5.63) (-5.63)
Natural res. 0.0132 0.0185∗ 0.0227∗∗ 0.0197∗∗ 0.0234∗∗∗
(1.28) (1.83) (2.28) (2.00) (2.96)
Oil rents 0.0286∗∗∗
(2.77)
Oil rents < median 0.114(1.00)
Oil rents > median 0.0286∗∗∗
(2.77)
Non-oil rents 0.0109 0.0109(0.87) (0.87)
Observations 113 113 113 113 113 113 113Hansen J 2.243 4.016 5.465 5.719 5.855p-value 0.134 0.260 0.141 0.126 0.119Kleibergen-Paap 10.112 11.076 11.084 11.185 11.494p-value 0.006 0.026 0.026 0.025 0.022
p-values in parentheses. ∗ p < 0.1, ∗∗ p < 0.05, ∗∗∗ p < 0.01. All specifications include education, the logarithm of totalpopulation, an openness measure, investment, and a measure of ethnic fractionalization. In Column (4), inflation and itsstandard deviation, as well as a measure of undervaluation, in Column (5) life expectancy and latitude are added.
Overall, the results of the long-term cross-sectional analysis confirm the results drawn from the
panel setting, and most importantly, even after instrumentation, the rule of law measure and the
17
![Page 20: Natural Resources, Institutions, and Economic Growth...2 Natural Resources, Institutional Quality, and Growth Starting with the observation that resource-abundant countries are often](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022052016/602e47f59d656d4ce718b2c2/html5/thumbnails/20.jpg)
corruption index are significantly related to GDP per capita growth.
6 Predictions
In-sample fit The in-sample predictions of the growth rates of Nigeria based on the different
specifications in Tables 2 and A.5 are graphically represented in Figures A.2 and A.3 in the Ap-
pendix. Relying on this graphical analysis, specifications (5) to (7) in Table 2 provide the best
in-sample fit of Nigeria’s growth rates. This seems to be mainly driven by the prediction of the
spike in growth in the period 2000-200415. Specification (7) is chosen to serve as the base for
the out-of-sample growth predictions, because it contains the finest decomposition of the natural
resource variable.
General assumptions GDP per capita growth rates are predicted for six five-year periods
starting in 2015-19, such that the last prediction period is 2040-44. The high degree of uncertainty
about the future development of covariates such as investment, trade or government expenditures,
is accommodated by the definition of different scenarios. Common to all scenarios is the assumption
that the fixed effect of Nigeria is moderately improving over time.16 Figure A.4 in the Appendix
shows the magnitude of the fixed effects of all countries in the sample. Fixed effects can be
understood as country-specific deviations from the overall constant of the regression. Nigeria’s
fixed effect is strikingly low, and among all the countries in the sample, only three countries have
lower fixed effects, among them Liberia as another Sub-Saharan African country. Assumptions
concerning changes of fixed effects over time reflect beliefs about the development of countries
relative to each other. In other words, if income convergence is assumed, fixed effects are modeled
to converge to each other. We assume, that Nigeria’s fixed effect will increase to -3 until 2050,
which is a level that is close to Burkina Faso (-3.7), the Senegal (-3.2), Indonesia (-2.9) or Cote
d’Ivoire (-2.4) in the current estimation.
In addition, in each scenario GDP per capita is updated, i.e. the GDP per capita growth rate
in (t− 1) is used in combination with the level of GDP per capita in (t− 1) to calculate GDP per
capita in period t. The future development of the remaining covariates differs across scenarios,
and the underlying assumptions are explained in detail below.
Scenario 0: This baseline scenario is rather pessimistic, and assumes that oil rents in GDP
remain at the low level that is predicted for 2015-19 until the end of the prediction period, 2040-
44. Expected oil rents for 2015-19 are based on the World Bank’s Commodity Price Forecasts for
15The high average growth rate in this period comes from a growth rate of close to 30% in 2004, as reported inthe World Bank’s World Development Indicators, but also by the United Nations (official data) and by the NationalBureau of Statistics in Nigeria.
16See for example IIASA (2015).
18
![Page 21: Natural Resources, Institutions, and Economic Growth...2 Natural Resources, Institutional Quality, and Growth Starting with the observation that resource-abundant countries are often](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022052016/602e47f59d656d4ce718b2c2/html5/thumbnails/21.jpg)
-50
510
1980 2000 2020 2040Year
Actual PredictedScenario 0 Scenario 1Scenario 2 Scenario 3
Figure 5 – Predicted growth rates of per capita GDP for Nigeria: Scenarios 0–3
19
![Page 22: Natural Resources, Institutions, and Economic Growth...2 Natural Resources, Institutional Quality, and Growth Starting with the observation that resource-abundant countries are often](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022052016/602e47f59d656d4ce718b2c2/html5/thumbnails/22.jpg)
this period. All other covariates remain at the levels of the (last observed) period 2010-14 and are
summarized in Table 4.
Table 4 – Values of covariates in Scenario 0
Variable Value assumed for all periodsbetween 2015-2044
Share of upper secondary and tertiary educated in the labour force 34.0%Government consumption as share of GDP 9.0%Investment as share of GDP 15%Openness indicator -12.8Inflation 26.6Oil rents as share of GDP 8.2%Non-oil natural resource rents as share of GDP 2.8%Rule of law 17.4Corruption -0.3
The resulting forecasts of GDP per capita growth rates are graphically displayed in Figure 5.17
The dotted line corresponds to Scenario 0. Under this scenario, growth rates are projected to rise
only moderately as compared to the current levels. Low oil prices, which are assumed to remain
at the low level over the next decades, and stagnating human capital stocks, investment, and
institutional quality keep growth prospects below 3% until 2040-44. The top left graph in Figure
A.7 in the Appendix shows the contributions of the main explanatory variables to the growth
predictions in Scenario 0, and to what extent they compensate for the significantly negative fixed
effect of Nigeria. Inherent to the underlying assumptions is that the contributions remain constant
over time, and the variation in the expected growth rate results from income convergence alone.
The factors that contribute most to Nigeria’s growth rates are human and physical capital, oil and
non-oil natural resource rents, institutional quality, and corruption.18
Scenario 1: That scenario differs from the baseline scenario with respect to the underlying
expected oil rents in GDP. The future development of oil rents is tied to the oil price forecasts
of the World Bank’s Commodity Price Forecasts (see Figure A.5 in the Appendix). All other
covariates remain at their 2010-14 level as displayed in Table 4, including the non-oil natural
resource rents.
17Growth rates used in the regressions as well as for the predictions are growth rates of per capita GDP, thatcorrespond to yearly averages over five-year periods. With an annual population growth of roughly 2.7%, GDPgrowth rates are considerably higher.
18It might seem puzzling that the institutional environment in Nigeria positively contributes to growth. Thisfinding is explained by the construction of the underlying indices: they are measured as deviations from country-specific means. As Nigeria’s institutional quality as well as corruption levels improved since the 1980s and 1990s,the current deviation from the mean is positive (negative) for the rule of law (corruption) index. If this improvementdid not happen, growth rates were predicted to be considerably lower.
20
![Page 23: Natural Resources, Institutions, and Economic Growth...2 Natural Resources, Institutional Quality, and Growth Starting with the observation that resource-abundant countries are often](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022052016/602e47f59d656d4ce718b2c2/html5/thumbnails/23.jpg)
-10
12
34
Cha
nge
in c
ontri
butio
n
2015 2020 2025 2030 2035 2040
-10
12
34
Cha
nge
in c
ontri
butio
n
2015 2020 2025 2030 2035 2040
-10
12
34
Cha
nge
in c
ontri
butio
n
2015 2020 2025 2030 2035 2040
Education Gov. cons.Investment OpennessOil rents Non-oil rentsRule of law Corruption
Figure 6 – Change in the contributions of covariates to predicted GDP per capita growth rates: Scenario 0vs. 1 (top left), Scenario 1 vs. 2 (top right), and Scenario 2 vs. 3 (bottom left)
Projected growth rates of GDP per capita based on this scenario are moderately higher than in
Scenario 0, and by 2040-44, they are expected to be close to 4%. The better part of the difference
between Scenarios 0 and 1 is materialized not before the end of the prediction period, however.
The top left graph in Figure 6 shows that inclining oil rents in GDP drive the difference to the
baseline projections. The expected recovery of the oil prices gradually raises the growth prospects
of the country, assuming that other factors remain constant. Most importantly, this improvement
can only be materialized, if institutional quality and corruption are not worsening simultaneously.
This scenario certainly suggests that recovering oil prices alone are not sufficient for noteworthy
and sustainable improvements of GDP per capita growth rates.
Scenario 2: Growth predictions based on Scenario 2 are more optimistic, and the underlying
assumptions can be found in Table 5. The share of upper secondary and tertiary educated indi-
viduals in the working age population follows the medium scenario of the IIASA/VID Education
21
![Page 24: Natural Resources, Institutions, and Economic Growth...2 Natural Resources, Institutional Quality, and Growth Starting with the observation that resource-abundant countries are often](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022052016/602e47f59d656d4ce718b2c2/html5/thumbnails/24.jpg)
projections (Lutz and Butz, 2014). Government consumption is assumed to fall by 5.6% per period,
as during 2000-14, investment is assumed to increase by 10% per period such that it reaches a share
of 26.7% by 2040-44. The openness index is expected to gradually improve back to the level of
1990-2000, and inflation is assumed to remain at a comparable high level of 26.6. The projections
of oil rents in GDP follow the oil price forecasts of the World Bank’s Commodity Price Forecasts
as in Scenario 1, but in this scenario also non-oil resource rents develop in line with the respective
price forecasts. This implies a further decline in 2015-19, and a gradual increase to present values
until 2040-44, and altogether this is less favorable for the country than a continuation of the current
trend, but at the same time a more realistic assumption. The rule of law and corruption indicators
remain at the 2010-14 level.
Table 5 – Values of covariates in Scenario 2
Year Educ. Gov.cons.
Invest-ment
Openness Inflation Oil, 4thquart.
Non-oilrents
Rule oflaw
Corruption
2015 40 7.53 16.61 -12.10 26.63 8.18 1.56 17.41 -0.292020 46 7.10 18.27 -10.91 26.63 10.31 1.67 17.41 -0.292025 52 6.70 20.10 -8.88 26.63 11.79 1.80 17.41 -0.292030 58 6.32 22.11 -5.43 26.63 13.48 1.95 17.41 -0.292035 63 5.96 24.32 0.44 26.63 15.41 2.11 17.41 -0.292040 69 5.62 26.75 10.43 26.63 17.61 2.29 17.41 -0.29
Growth forecasts under these assumptions are significantly revised upwards as compared to
Scenarios 0 and 1, and are projected to cross the 5% threshold in 2030. Particular to this scenario
is that as opposed to the first two scenarios, the contributing factors can—at least to a certain
degree—be influenced by policies. The top right graph in Figure 6 displays how the contribution
of various factors to GDP per capita growth differs between Scenarios 1 and 2. In particular the
influence of human and physical capital accumulation is striking. Also the assumed slight reduction
in government consumption and the gradual improvement of the openness measure contribute
positively to growth. Merely the tying of non-oil natural resource rents to commodity price forecasts
causes a lower contribution of that factor to growth. This latter assumption, however, is important,
and more realistic than the presumption of constant non-oil natural resource rents in the upcoming
decades.
Scenario 3: This scenario differs from Scenario 2 with respect to the adopted institutional char-
acteristics. While in Scenario 2, the rule of law and corruption were assumed to remain constant
at the current levels, Scenario 3 shows predicted growth rates that could be materialized given
moderate improvements of the institutional quality and the corruption indicators (for a graphical
representation of the expected development, please see Figure A.6 in the Appendix).
22
![Page 25: Natural Resources, Institutions, and Economic Growth...2 Natural Resources, Institutional Quality, and Growth Starting with the observation that resource-abundant countries are often](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022052016/602e47f59d656d4ce718b2c2/html5/thumbnails/25.jpg)
Table 6 – Predicted GDP per capita growth rates for different scenarios
Period Scenario 0 Scenario 1 Scenario 2 Scenario 3
2010-14 2.94 2.94 2.94 2.942015-19 1.60 1.60 1.67 1.862020-24 2.15 2.41 3.22 3.592025-29 2.54 2.94 4.44 4.992030-34 2.80 3.35 5.51 6.222035-39 2.95 3.67 6.42 7.302040-44 3.03 3.92 7.34 8.38
Corresponding growth projections further improve, and highlight the potential inherent to
enhancements of the quality of institutions and a reduction in corruption.
Summary For the projections of Nigeria’s GDP per capita growth rates, we rely on the panel
growth regression results presented in column (7) Table 2, as this specification exhibits the best
in-sample fit and at the same time contains decomposed natural resource variables. Predicted
growth rates are yearly growth rates of per capita GDP, and correspond to a time window of five
years. In order to accommodate the high degree of uncertainty concerning the future developments
of the explanatory variables, four different scenarios are defined. Table 6 summarizes the predicted
growth rates between the 2015-19 and 2040-44 for the four scenarios, and below the key implications
are highlighted.
1. Scenario 0 effectively simulates an extrapolation of the status-quo in combination with
continuously low oil prices. Predicted GDP per capita growth rates increase moderately over
time due to income convergence, but reach merely 3% by 2040-44.
2. In Scenario 1, expected oil rents in GDP follow the path of oil price projections, which
suggest a moderate recovery after the sharp drop between 2015 and 2019. Growth rates are
predicted to improve as compared to the baseline scenario, but a rise above 4% appears not
to be feasible until 2040-44. Based on the forecasts, a recovery of oil prices alone is not
sufficient for obtaining sustainable growth rates of per capita GDP above 4%, even if they
are not accompanied by a reduction in the quality of institutions.
3. Growth predictions based on Scenario 2 exceed 5% from the period 2030-34 onwards. The
underlying assumptions are moderate improvements of human and physical capital accumu-
lation, an increasing openness of the economy, a reduction of government consumption, as
well as non-oil natural resource rents that follow commodity price forecasts. The largest
23
![Page 26: Natural Resources, Institutions, and Economic Growth...2 Natural Resources, Institutional Quality, and Growth Starting with the observation that resource-abundant countries are often](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022052016/602e47f59d656d4ce718b2c2/html5/thumbnails/26.jpg)
contribution to the predicted growth rates come from education and investment, both areas
that can be tackled by economic policy.
4. An additional improvement of the institutional quality, measured by indices of the rule of law
and corruption, leads to a further rise in growth prospects by up to 1%-point in Scenario
3. Addressing present shortcomings in the transparency and enforceability of law and the
access of civilians to justice and secure property rights, as well as delimiting corruption on
all levels, appear to be fruitful strategies for enhancing Nigeria’s growth prospects.
7 Conclusions
In this empirical assessment, the determinants of GDP per capita growth are studied using data of
approximately 150 developing and developed countries during 1970 and 2014, focusing in particular
on the role of natural resources, their interactions with institutional quality, and specific impacts
in the country of Nigeria. Blessed by an enormous wealth of natural resources but at the same
time afflicted by stagnating GDP growth rates, Nigeria is a prominent example of an economy that
lacks economic development in spite of its resource-abundance. Based on the econometric results,
Nigeria’s growth prospects are assessed under the assumption of different scenarios.
Relying on the global sample, the empirical findings suggest that a sound institutional environ-
ment, measured by an index of the rule of law, is associated with higher GDP per capita growth
rates. In addition, the impact of natural resources on GDP per capita growth turns positive,
once natural resources are interacted with the rule of law. The effect of natural resources thus
depends on the quality of institutions, and resources can be a blessing in countries with transpar-
ent and enforceable law, secure property rights, as well equality before the law of all citizens, and
their freedom of movement and religion. The estimates further suggest that the growth impact of
natural resources differs by the level of resource-dependence of the countries. Countries that are
highly dependent on resources obtain lower growth-returns than countries that have comparably
low shares of resource rents in GDP.
Shifting the focus to Nigeria reveals that improvements of institutional quality—measured by
the rule of law as well as by a corruption index—have a particular beneficial effect on growth rates
of the country. In particular a reduction of corruption not only has a direct influence on economic
growth, but also an indirect one through the improvement of the growth-enhancing potential of
natural resources. If the level of corruption is held constant, higher natural resource rents are
estimated to increase Nigeria’s growth rates. When omitting the corruption variable, the impact
of natural resources appears to be detrimental to the growth of the economy. This suggests a
strong link between resource endowments and the quality of institutions in the country, and a
stabilization of the institutional environment at an improved level should be of high priority.
24
![Page 27: Natural Resources, Institutions, and Economic Growth...2 Natural Resources, Institutional Quality, and Growth Starting with the observation that resource-abundant countries are often](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022052016/602e47f59d656d4ce718b2c2/html5/thumbnails/27.jpg)
An additional important result is found with respect to the over-/undervaluation of Nigeria’s
currency. Undervaluation is positively linked to GDP growth, and the long periods of overvaluation
significantly reduced the country’s growth rates. Similar to institutional quality, there is an addi-
tional indirect effect of that factor: when holding the degree of overvaluation constant, the impact
of natural resources on growth increases. Such findings are in line with Dutch-disease effects, and
managing the country’s real exchange rate can not only positively contribute to growth directly,
but also indirectly by improving the growth-effect of resources.
As especially the institutional variables are prone to endogeneity biases, similar growth regres-
sions have been estimated using instrumental variable estimators at the cross-sectional level. The
positive and negative growth impacts of the rule of law and corruption, respectively, are confirmed
when using instrumental variables suggested in the literature.
The results of the panel regressions are then used to assess Nigeria’s future growth potential
based on different scenarios of the covariates. The stabilization of oil prices at a higher level
than currently observed seems not sufficient for sustainable growth rates in the country. A steady
accumulation of human as well as physical capital are the main ingredients for reaching an estimated
GDP per capita growth rate of 5%, and a slight improvement of the institutional quality indicators
is estimated to add another percentage point.
25
![Page 28: Natural Resources, Institutions, and Economic Growth...2 Natural Resources, Institutional Quality, and Growth Starting with the observation that resource-abundant countries are often](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022052016/602e47f59d656d4ce718b2c2/html5/thumbnails/28.jpg)
References
Acemoglu, D., S. Johnson, and J. Robinson (2001): “The Colonial Origins of Comparative
Development: An Empirical Investigation,” American Economic Review, 91(5), 1369–1401.
Atkinson, G., and K. Hamilton (2003): “Savings, Growth and the Resource Curse Hypothesis,”
World Development, 31(11), 1793–1807.
Badinger, H., and E. Nindl (2014): “Globalisation and Corruption, Revisited,” The World
Economy, 37(10), 1424–1440.
Baland, J.-M., and P. Francois (2000): “Rent-seeking and resource booms,” Journal of De-
velopment Economics, 61(2), 527–542.
Bhattacharyya, S., and R. Hodler (2010): “Natural resources, democracy and corruption,”
European Economic Review, 54(4), 608–621.
Brunnschweiler, C. N. (2008): “Cursing the Blessings? Natural Resource Abundance, Institu-
tions, and Economic Growth,” World Development, 36(3), 399–419.
Bulte, E. H., R. Damania, and R. T. Deacon (2005): “Resource intensity, institutions, and
development,” World Development, 33(7), 1029–1044.
Campos, N. F., R. D. Dimova, and A. Saleh (2010): “Whither Corruption? A Quantitative
Survey of the Literature on Corruption and Growth,” SSRN Scholarly Paper ID 1718935, Social
Science Research Network, Rochester, NY.
Coppedge, M., J. Gerring, S. I. Lindberg, S.-E. Skaaning, J. Teorell, E. Tzelgov, Y.-
t. Wang, D. Altman, M. Bernhard, M. S. Fish, A. Glynn, A. Hicken, C. H. Knutsen,
K. McMann, J. Staton, and B. Zimmermann (2015): “Varieties of Democracy Methodology
v5,” Varieties of democracy project: Project documentation paper series, University of Gothen-
burg, Kellogg Institute.
Dreher, A., and S. Langlotz (2015): “Aid and Growth. New Evidence Using an Excludable
Instrument,” CESifo Working Paper Series 5515, CESifo Group Munich.
Easterly, W., and R. Levine (2003): “Tropics, germs, and crops: how endowments influence
economic development,” Journal of Monetary Economics, 50(1), 3–39.
Egger, P., and H. Winner (2005): “Evidence on corruption as an incentive for foreign direct
investment,” European Journal of Political Economy, 21(4), 932–952.
Feenstra, R. C., R. Inklaar, and M. P. Timmer (2015): “The Next Generation of the Penn
World Table,” American Economic Review, 105(10), 3150–82.
26
![Page 29: Natural Resources, Institutions, and Economic Growth...2 Natural Resources, Institutional Quality, and Growth Starting with the observation that resource-abundant countries are often](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022052016/602e47f59d656d4ce718b2c2/html5/thumbnails/29.jpg)
Gylfason, T. (2001): “Natural resources, education, and economic development,” European
Economic Review, 45(4–6), 847–859.
Gylfason, T., T. T. Herbertsson, and G. Zoega (1999): “A Mixed Blessing,” Macroeconomic
Dynamics, 3(02), 204–225.
Hall, R. E., and C. I. Jones (1999): “Why do Some Countries Produce So Much More Output
Per Worker than Others?,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 114(1), 83–116.
Hodler, R. (2006): “The curse of natural resources in fractionalized countries,” European Eco-
nomic Review, 50(6), 1367–1386.
IIASA (2015): “SSP Data Set,” Supplementary material, Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
(IIASA) and Vienna Institute of Demography (VID).
Lane, P. R., and A. Tornell (1996): “Power, growth, and the voracity effect,” Journal of
Economic Growth, 1(2), 213–241.
Leite, C. A., and J. Weidmann (1999): “Does Mother Nature Corrupt? Natural Resources,
Corruption, and Economic Growth,” SSRN Scholarly Paper ID 259928, Social Science Research
Network, Rochester, NY.
Lutz, W., and W. P. Butz (2014): World Population and Human Capital in the Twenty-First
Century. Oxford University Press.
Mehlum, H., K. Moene, and R. Torvik (2006): “Institutions and the Resource Curse*,” The
Economic Journal, 116(508), 1–20.
Mendez, F., and F. Sepulveda (2006): “Corruption, growth and political regimes: Cross coun-
try evidence,” European Journal of Political Economy, 22(1), 82–98.
Nunn, N., and N. Qian (2014): “US Food Aid and Civil Conflict,” The American Economic
Review, 104(6), 1630–1666.
Raggl, A. K. (2014): “Economic growth in Ghana : determinants and prospect,” World Bank
Policy Research Working Paper WPS6750, The World Bank.
Rodrik, D. (2008): “The Real Exchange Rate and Economic Growth,” Brookings Papers on
Economic Activity, 2008(2), 365–412.
Sachs, J. D., and A. M. Warner (1995): “Natural Resource Abundance and Economic Growth,”
Working Paper 5398, National Bureau of Economic Research.
27
![Page 30: Natural Resources, Institutions, and Economic Growth...2 Natural Resources, Institutional Quality, and Growth Starting with the observation that resource-abundant countries are often](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022052016/602e47f59d656d4ce718b2c2/html5/thumbnails/30.jpg)
(1997): “Sources of Slow Growth in African Economies,” Journal of African Economies,
6(3), 335–376.
(2001): “The curse of natural resources,” European Economic Review, 45(4–6), 827–838.
Sala-i-Martin, X., and A. Subramanian (2003): “Addressing the Natural Resource Curse:
An Illustration from Nigeria,” Working Paper 9804, National Bureau of Economic Research.
(2013): “Addressing the Natural Resource Curse: An Illustration from Nigeria,” Journal
of African Economies, 22(4), 570–615.
Torvik, R. (2001): “Learning by doing and the Dutch disease,” European Economic Review,
45(2), 285–306.
(2002): “Natural resources, rent seeking and welfare,” Journal of Development Economics,
67(2), 455–470.
van der Ploeg, F. (2011): “Natural Resources: Curse or Blessing?,” Journal of Economic
Literature, 49(2), 366–420.
Vial, V., and J. Hanoteau (2010): “Corruption, Manufacturing Plant Growth, and the Asian
Paradox: Indonesian Evidence,” World Development, 38(5), 693–705.
Werker, E., F. Z. Ahmed, and C. Cohen (2009): “How Is Foreign Aid Spent? Evidence from
a Natural Experiment,” American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 1(2), 225–244.
28
![Page 31: Natural Resources, Institutions, and Economic Growth...2 Natural Resources, Institutional Quality, and Growth Starting with the observation that resource-abundant countries are often](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022052016/602e47f59d656d4ce718b2c2/html5/thumbnails/31.jpg)
A Appendix
Table A.1 – Long-run GDP per capita growth, its standard deviation, natural resource and oil rents for NGAand various country-aggregates
GDP percapita growth
St.D. GDP percapita growth
Naturalresource rents
Oil rents N
NGA 1.06 7.47 43.44 41.10 1Sub-Saharan Africa 0.87 5.23 13.70 3.91 41Oil rents > 0 1.79 4.07 16.23 12.86 59No oil rents 1.52 4.36 9.11 0.00 60All 1.65 4.22 12.64 6.37 119
0.5
11.
52
2.5
Gro
wth
impa
ct (%
-poi
nts)
2010 2020 2030 2040year
Column 3 Column 4Column 5
Figure A.1 – Contribution to GDP per capita growth: improvement of the undervaluation index back to 0.38(level 1965-69) until 2040-44
29
![Page 32: Natural Resources, Institutions, and Economic Growth...2 Natural Resources, Institutional Quality, and Growth Starting with the observation that resource-abundant countries are often](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022052016/602e47f59d656d4ce718b2c2/html5/thumbnails/32.jpg)
Table A.2 – Variable description: Panel setting
Variable Description Source
Dependent variable Growth in per capita GDP, 5-year averages WDI
Explanatory variables
Log GDP per capita Log of GDP per capita (constant 2005$), measured at start of each 5-yrperiod
WDI
Education Share of upper secondary and tertiary educated among the 15 to 64 yearolds, 5-year average
IIASA
Governm. cons. General government final consumption expenditure (% of GDP), 5-year av-erage
WDI
Investment Gross fixed capital formation (% of GDP), 5-year average WDI
Openness Imports plus exports of goods and services (% of GDP) filtered for its rela-tion to log(area) and log(population), 5-year average
WDI
Inflation Inflation, GDP deflator (annual %), 5-year average WDI
Rule of law Equality before the law and civil liberties index (0, 100), deviations fromcountry-mean, 5-year average
V-Dem
Corruption Index of political corruption, runs from less corrupt to more corrupt, (0,100), deviations from country-mean, 5-year average
V-Dem
Natural resource rents Natural resources rents (% of GDP), 5-year averages WDI
Oil rents Oil rents (% of GDP), 5-year averages WDI
Mineral rents Mineral rents (% of GDP), 5-year averages WDI
Forest rents Forest rents (% of GDP), 5-year averages WDI
Non-oil rents Natural resource rents excluding oil (% of GDP), 5-year averages WDI
Oil rents, 1st quartile Oil rents if oil rents belong to the lowest quartile in corresponding period,0 otherwise (i.e. interaction of the oil rents variable with a dummy variableindicating the first quartile)
Oil rents, 2nd quartile Oil rents if oil rents belong to the 2nd quartile in corresponding period, 0otherwise
Oil rents, 3rd quartile Oil rents if oil rents belong to the 3rd quartile in corresponding period, 0otherwise
Oil rents, 4th quartile Oil rents if oil rents belong to the highest quartile in corresponding period,0 otherwiseNote: The Variables oil rents 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th quartile add up to thevariable oil rents
Log(undervaluation) Measure of currency undervaluation based on Rodrik (2008) using the pricelevel of GDP and GDP per capita,
PWT
WDI: World Development Indicators (2015), The World Bank; IIASA: IIASA-VID dateset on educational attainment (Lutzand Butz, 2014); V-Dem: Varieties of Democracy dataset (Coppedge, Gerring, Lindberg, Skaaning, Teorell, Tzelgov, Wang,Altman, Bernhard, Fish, Glynn, Hicken, Knutsen, McMann, Staton, and Zimmermann, 2015); PWT: Penn World TablesVersion 8.1 (Feenstra, Inklaar, and Timmer, 2015)
30
![Page 33: Natural Resources, Institutions, and Economic Growth...2 Natural Resources, Institutional Quality, and Growth Starting with the observation that resource-abundant countries are often](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022052016/602e47f59d656d4ce718b2c2/html5/thumbnails/33.jpg)
Table A.3 – Variable description: Cross-sectional setting
Variable Description Source
Dependent variable Growth in per capita GDP, average 1980-2014 WDI
Explanatory variables
Log GDP per capita Log of GDP per capita (constant 2005$), initial value (1980) WDI
Education Share of upper secondary and tertiary educated among the 15 to 64 yearolds, initial value (1980)
IIASA
Investment Gross fixed capital formation (% of GDP), 5-year average WDI
Openness Imports plus exports of goods and services (% of GDP) filtered for itsrelation to log(area) and log(population), 5-year average
WDI
Inflation Inflation, GDP deflator (annual %), 5-year average WDI
Rule of law Equality before the law and civil liberties index, (0, 100), average 1980-2014
V-Dem
Corruption Index of political corruption, runs from less corrupt to more corrupt,(0,100), average 1980-2014
V-Dem
Natural resource rents Natural resources rents (% of GDP), 5-year averages WDI
Oil rents Oil rents (% of GDP), 5-year averages WDI
Mineral rents Mineral rents (% of GDP), 5-year averages WDI
Forest rents Forest rents (% of GDP), 5-year averages WDI
Non-oil rents Natural resource rents excluding oil (% of GDP), 5-year averages WDI
Oil rents, below median Oil rents if oil rents belong to the lowest quartile in corresponding period,0 otherwise (i.e. interaction of the oil rents variable with a dummy variableindicating the first quartile)
Oil rents, above median Oil rents if oil rents belong to the 2nd quartile in corresponding period, 0otherwise
Log(undervaluation) Measure of currency undervaluation based on Rodrik (2008) using the pricelevel of GDP and GDP per capita,
PWT
InstrumentsEurFrac Fraction of the population speaking one of the major Western European
languages (English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, German) as a mothertongue
HJ
EngFrac Fraction of the population speaking English as a mother tongue HJ
WDI: World Development Indicators (2015), The World Bank; IIASA: IIASA-VID dateset on educational attainment (Lutzand Butz, 2014); V-Dem: Varieties of Democracy dataset (Coppedge, Gerring, Lindberg, Skaaning, Teorell, Tzelgov, Wang,Altman, Bernhard, Fish, Glynn, Hicken, Knutsen, McMann, Staton, and Zimmermann, 2015); HJ: Dataset used by Halland Jones (1999); PWT: Penn World Tables Version 8.1 (Feenstra, Inklaar, and Timmer, 2015)
31
![Page 34: Natural Resources, Institutions, and Economic Growth...2 Natural Resources, Institutional Quality, and Growth Starting with the observation that resource-abundant countries are often](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022052016/602e47f59d656d4ce718b2c2/html5/thumbnails/34.jpg)
Table A.4 – Country and time coverage in the panel estimations (the years indicate the first year of the 5-yearwindows)
Country MIN MAX t Conutry MIN MAX t Country MIN MAX t
East Asia & Pacific Spain 1970 2010 9 South AsiaAustralia 1970 2010 9 Sweden 1970 2010 9 Afghanistan 2010 2010 1Cambodia 1990 2010 5 Switzerland 1980 2010 7 Bangladesh 1980 2010 7China 1970 2010 9 Tajikistan 1995 2010 4 Bhutan 1980 2010 7Indonesia 1975 2010 8 Turkey 1970 2010 9 India 1970 2010 9Japan 1970 2010 9 Turkmenistan 1995 2010 3 Maldives 2000 2005 2Korea, Rep. 1970 2010 9 Ukraine 1995 2010 4 Nepal 1975 2010 8Lao PDR 1985 2010 4 United Kingd. 1970 2010 9 Pakistan 1970 2010 9Malaysia 1970 2010 9 Uzbekistan 2010 2010 1 Sri Lanka 2010 2010 1Mongolia 1980 2010 7New Zealand 1975 2010 8 Latin America & CaribbeanPhilippines 1970 2010 9 Argentina 1970 2010 8 Sub-Saharan AfricaThailand 1970 2010 9 Barbados 2010 2010 1 Benin 1980 2010 7Timor-Leste 2000 2000 1 Bolivia 1970 2010 9 Botswana 2010 2010 1Vanuatu 1980 2010 7 Brazil 1970 2010 9 Burkina Faso 1975 2010 8Vietnam 1985 2010 6 Chile 1970 2010 9 Burundi 1970 2010 9
Colombia 1970 2010 9 Cabo Verde 2005 2010 2Europe & Central Asia Costa Rica 1970 2010 9 Cameroon 1975 2010 8Albania 1980 2010 7 Cuba 1970 2010 9 Cen. Afr. Rep. 1975 2010 8Armenia 1995 2010 4 Dominican R. 1970 2010 9 Chad 2000 2010 3Austria 1970 2010 9 Ecuador 1970 2010 9 Comoros 1980 2010 7Azerbaijan 1995 2010 4 El Salvador 1970 2010 9 Congo, D. Rep. 1970 2010 9Belarus 1990 2010 5 Guatemala 1970 2010 9 Congo, Rep. 1970 2010 9Belgium 2000 2010 3 Guyana 1970 2010 9 Cote d’Ivoire 1970 2010 9Bosnia & Herz. 2000 2010 3 Honduras 1970 2010 9 Eritrea 2010 2010 1Bulgaria 1980 2010 7 Jamaica 1970 2010 9 Ethiopia 2010 2010 1Croatia 1995 2010 4 Mexico 1970 2010 9 Gabon 1970 2010 9Cyprus 1975 2010 8 Nicaragua 1970 2010 7 Gambia, The 1980 2010 7Czech Republic 1990 2010 5 Panama 1980 2010 7 Ghana 1970 2010 9Denmark 1970 2010 9 Paraguay 1990 2010 5 Guinea 1985 2010 6Estonia 1995 2010 4 Peru 1970 2010 9 Guinea-Bissau 1975 2010 8Finland 1970 2010 9 Suriname 1975 2005 7 Kenya 1970 2010 9France 1970 2010 9 Trinidad & T. 1970 2010 9 Lesotho 1970 2010 9Georgia 1995 2010 4 Uruguay 1970 2010 9 Liberia 2000 2010 3Germany 1970 2010 9 Venezuela, RB 1970 2010 9 Madagascar 1970 2010 9Greece 1970 2010 9 Malawi 1970 2010 9Hungary 1990 2010 5 Middle East & North Africa Mali 1970 2010 8Iceland 1995 2010 4 Algeria 1970 2010 9 Mauritania 2010 2010 1Ireland 1970 2010 9 Egypt, Arab Rep. 1970 2010 9 Mauritius 1975 2010 8Italy 1970 2010 9 Iran, Islamic Rep. 1970 2010 9 Mozambique 1980 2010 7Kazakhstan 1990 2010 5 Iraq 2000 2010 3 Namibia 1980 2010 7Kyrgyz Rep. 1995 2010 4 Israel 2010 2010 1 Niger 1980 2010 7Latvia 1995 2010 4 Jordan 1975 2010 8 Nigeria 1980 2010 7Lithuania 2000 2010 3 Lebanon 1990 2010 5 Rwanda 1970 2010 9Macedonia 1990 2010 5 Morocco 1970 2010 9 Senegal 1970 2010 9Moldova 1995 2010 4 Qatar 2000 2010 3 Sierra Leone 1980 2010 7Montenegro 2005 2010 2 Saudi Arabia 1970 2010 9 South Africa 1970 2010 9Netherlands 1970 2010 9 Syrian Arab Rep. 1970 2005 8 Sudan 2010 2010 1Norway 1970 2010 9 Tunisia 1970 2010 9 Swaziland 1970 2010 9Poland 1990 2010 5 Tanzania 1990 2010 5Portugal 1970 2010 9 North America Togo 2010 2010 1Romania 1990 2010 5 Canada 1970 2010 9 Uganda 1980 2010 7Russian Fed.n 1990 2010 5 United States 1970 2010 9 Zambia 1970 2010 6Serbia 2005 2010 2 Zimbabwe 1975 2010 8Slovak Rep. 1990 2010 5Slovenia 1995 2010 4
32
![Page 35: Natural Resources, Institutions, and Economic Growth...2 Natural Resources, Institutional Quality, and Growth Starting with the observation that resource-abundant countries are often](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022052016/602e47f59d656d4ce718b2c2/html5/thumbnails/35.jpg)
Table A.5 – Determinants of growth per capita: Panel fixed effects estimations, additional results
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
Log(GDP per capita) -2.980∗∗∗ -3.373∗∗∗ -3.155∗∗∗ -3.238∗∗∗ -3.321∗∗∗
(0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)
Education 0.199∗∗ 0.0428 0.0434∗ 0.0357 0.0394(0.013) (0.131) (0.097) (0.194) (0.152)
Education x GDP per capita -0.0158∗∗
(0.036)
Education x NGA 0.321∗∗∗
(0.000)
Log(undervaluation) -0.223 0.0392 0.0450(0.613) (0.925) (0.914)
Log(underval) x NGA 6.157∗∗∗ 5.552∗∗∗ 5.517∗∗∗
(0.000) (0.000) (0.000)
Governm. cons. -0.0828∗∗ -0.0955∗∗ -0.102∗∗ -0.110∗∗∗ -0.104∗∗
(0.025) (0.011) (0.018) (0.007) (0.011)
Investment 0.148∗∗∗ 0.154∗∗∗ 0.150∗∗∗ 0.159∗∗∗ 0.161∗∗∗
(0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)
Openness 0.0126∗∗ 0.0125∗∗ 0.0154∗∗ 0.0139∗∗ 0.0139∗∗
(0.047) (0.038) (0.025) (0.035) (0.035)
Inflation -0.00159∗∗∗ -0.00160∗∗∗ -0.00179∗∗∗ -0.00177∗∗∗ -0.00171∗∗∗
(0.000) (0.000) (0.001) (0.001) (0.002)
Rule of law 0.0130 0.0170∗∗ 0.0198∗∗∗ 0.0172∗∗ 0.0154∗∗
(0.106) (0.014) (0.003) (0.016) (0.028)
Natural res. 0.0432(0.125)
Nat. res. x NGA 0.0828∗∗∗
(0.009)
Oil rents 0.0737 0.0711 0.0693(0.107) (0.113) (0.137)
Oil rents x NGA -0.394∗∗∗ -0.0480 -0.285∗∗∗ -0.255∗∗∗
(0.000) (0.323) (0.000) (0.000)
Non-oil rents 0.0239 0.0277 0.0304 0.0229(0.491) (0.427) (0.396) (0.491)
Non-oil rents x NGA 1.480∗∗∗ 0.637∗∗∗ 1.715∗∗∗ 1.686∗∗∗
(0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)
Oil rents, 1st qu. 5.517∗∗∗
(0.000)
Oil rents, 2nd qu. 0.616∗∗∗
(0.003)
Oil rents, 3rd qu. 0.144∗∗
(0.017)
Oil rents, 4th qu. 0.0785∗
(0.096)
Corruption 0.0307∗∗
(0.034)Observations 1000 1000 960 956 956R2 0.307 0.303 0.305 0.305 0.315N g 150 150 142 142 142
Each specification includes country and period fixed effects, as well as a constant. p-values in parentheses. ∗ p < 0.1, ∗∗
p < 0.05, ∗∗∗ p < 0.01.
33
![Page 36: Natural Resources, Institutions, and Economic Growth...2 Natural Resources, Institutional Quality, and Growth Starting with the observation that resource-abundant countries are often](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022052016/602e47f59d656d4ce718b2c2/html5/thumbnails/36.jpg)
-50
510
GD
P p
er c
apita
gro
wth
1980 1990 2000 2010 2020Year
Actual In-sample fit
-50
510
GD
P p
er c
apita
gro
wth
1980 1990 2000 2010 2020Year
Actual In-sample fit
-50
510
GD
P p
er c
apita
gro
wth
1980 1990 2000 2010 2020Year
Actual In-sample fit
-50
510
GD
P p
er c
apita
gro
wth
1980 1990 2000 2010 2020Year
Actual In-sample fit
-50
510
GD
P p
er c
apita
gro
wth
1980 1990 2000 2010 2020Year
Actual In-sample fit
-50
510
GD
P p
er c
apita
gro
wth
1980 1990 2000 2010 2020Year
Actual In-sample fit
-50
510
GD
P p
er c
apita
gro
wth
1980 1990 2000 2010 2020Year
Actual In-sample fit
Figure A.2 – Actual GDP per capital growth rates in Nigeria vs. in-sample prediction based on columns (1)to (7) in Table 2
34
![Page 37: Natural Resources, Institutions, and Economic Growth...2 Natural Resources, Institutional Quality, and Growth Starting with the observation that resource-abundant countries are often](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022052016/602e47f59d656d4ce718b2c2/html5/thumbnails/37.jpg)
-50
510
GD
P p
er c
apita
gro
wth
1980 1990 2000 2010 2020Year
Actual In-sample fit
-50
510
GD
P p
er c
apita
gro
wth
1980 1990 2000 2010 2020Year
Actual In-sample fit
-50
510
GD
P p
er c
apita
gro
wth
1980 1990 2000 2010 2020Year
Actual In-sample fit
-50
510
GD
P p
er c
apita
gro
wth
1980 1990 2000 2010 2020Year
Actual In-sample fit
-50
510
GD
P p
er c
apita
gro
wth
1980 1990 2000 2010 2020Year
Actual In-sample fit
Figure A.3 – Actual GDP per capital growth rates in Nigeria vs. in-sample prediction based on columns (1)to (5) in Table A.5
35
![Page 38: Natural Resources, Institutions, and Economic Growth...2 Natural Resources, Institutional Quality, and Growth Starting with the observation that resource-abundant countries are often](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022052016/602e47f59d656d4ce718b2c2/html5/thumbnails/38.jpg)
LBRTJK
KGZ
NERGINMDGZAR
BDIMNG
MWIZWENPLTCDCAF
COGUKRGNBGHALSOMDAPHLGUYGMB
TZAUGAVNMRUSINDSLEKENKAZBGDMLI
MOZIRQ
RWABENCMRBFAIRNEGYPAKAZESEN
BLRCOM
IDNBOL
ALBDZALAOCIVSYRGEO
HNDKHM
BTNPRY
PERROMARMVENCHNBGR
JORMKD
THAVUT
NGA
ECUMYSGTMGABMAR
BIHSWZTUNCOLCZEJAM
SLVSURTMP
NAMZAFDOMARG
PANHUNCHL
SAUCUBPOLCRIHRVBRASVKESTMEX
TTOTURLTU
LVASVNMUS
URYAUSLBNCANNZL
GRCUSAQATMDVJPNKORAUTDEUBEL
CHENORCYPNLDPRT
ESPSWEFINDNK
FRAITA
IRLGBR
ISL
-10 -5 0 5 10Fixed Effects
Figure A.4 – Country fixed effects based on specification (7) in Table 2
36
![Page 39: Natural Resources, Institutions, and Economic Growth...2 Natural Resources, Institutional Quality, and Growth Starting with the observation that resource-abundant countries are often](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022052016/602e47f59d656d4ce718b2c2/html5/thumbnails/39.jpg)
1020
3040
50
1980 2000 2020 2040year
Figure A.5 – Oil rents as shares in GDP: historic and expectations for 2015-2044, Scenarios 1–3
-10
010
2030
1980 2000 2020 2040year
-.50
.51
1.5
2
1980 2000 2020 2040year
Figure A.6 – Institutional indicators: historic and expectations for 2015-2044 in Scenario 3: Rule of law (left)and corruption (right)
37
![Page 40: Natural Resources, Institutions, and Economic Growth...2 Natural Resources, Institutional Quality, and Growth Starting with the observation that resource-abundant countries are often](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022052016/602e47f59d656d4ce718b2c2/html5/thumbnails/40.jpg)
02
46
810
Con
tribu
tion
to g
row
th
2015 2020 2025 2030 2035 2040
Education Gov. cons.Investment OpennessInflation Oil rentsNon-oil rents Rule of lawCorruption
05
10C
ontri
butio
n to
gro
wth
2015 2020 2025 2030 2035 2040
Education Gov. cons.Investment OpennessInflation Oil rentsNon-oil rents Rule of lawCorruption
05
1015
Con
tribu
tion
to g
row
th
2015 2020 2025 2030 2035 2040
Education Gov. cons.Investment OpennessInflation Oil rentsNon-oil rents Rule of lawCorruption
05
1015
20C
ontri
butio
n to
gro
wth
2015 2020 2025 2030 2035 2040
Education Gov. cons.Investment OpennessInflation Oil rentsNon-oil rents Rule of lawCorruption
Figure A.7 – Contributions of covariates to predicted GDP per capita growth rates in Scenario 0 (top left),1 (top right), 2 (bottom left) and 3 (bottom right)
38