wAbstract
@A number of studies suggest that natural resources can have a
negative impact on the developing prospects of countries. Empirical
results suggest that political economy models of patronage and
rent-seeking are central to understanding why such a resource
curse arises. In other words, the resource curse is created by
certain resource rents leading to dysfunctional behaviour. This
article introduces the term impartiality enhancing institutions
to structure policy debates by distinguishing conditions under
which negative effects of resources can be mitigated. Moreover,
it is argued that viewing institutions as an equilibrium outcome
has implications for the analysis of institutional change. Policy
initiatives that do not promote the impartiality of institutions,
nor attend to the underlying interests and incentives keeping
a bad institutional equilibrium in place, will not help lift the
resource curse.
Keywords: Resource curse; Institutionsx
1. Introduction
2. Political economy models of the resource curse
@2.1. Centralized political economy models of the resource
curse
@2.2. Decentralized political economy models of the resource curse
@2.3. Which rents and which resources?
3. What is needed: impartiality enhancing institutions
@3.1. Recasting the resource curse problem
@3.2. The problem of institutional change
4. Concluding remarks
References