Related papers: The artefact of the Natural Resources Curse
In the study of the Political Resource Curse (Brollo et al.,2013), the authors identified a new channel to investigate whether the windfalls of resources are unambiguously beneficial to society, both with theory and empirical evidence. This…
Despite rapidly-expanding academic and policy interest in the links between natural resource wealth and development failures (commonly referred to as the resource curse) little attention has been devoted to the psychology behind the…
This article provides an overview of the history of economic thought on natural resource extraction, which has long been considered an enclave industry with few benefits for areas beyond the local economy. We focus on more recent…
We uncover a large and significant low-minus-high rank effect for commodities across two centuries. There is nothing anomalous about this anomaly, nor is it clear how it can be arbitraged away. Using nonparametric econometric methods, we…
We consider a game-theoretic model where individuals compete over a shared failure-prone system or resource. We investigate the effectiveness of a taxation mechanism in controlling the utilization of the resource at the Nash equilibrium…
Many empirical studies have shown that government quality is a key determinant of vulnerability to natural disasters. Protection against natural disasters can be a public good -- flood protection, for example -- or a natural monopoly --…
This study reevaluates the traditional understanding of the "political resource curse" by examining the unique impact of energy transition metals, specifically cobalt, on local-level conflicts in Africa. Contrary to previous studies that…
For centuries, national economies created wealth by engaging in international trade and production. The resulting international supply networks not only increase wealth for countries, but also create systemic risk: economic shocks,…
There are several theories in economics regarding the roots or causes of prosperity in a society. One of these theories or hypotheses -- named geography hypothesis -- mentions that the reason why some countries are prosperous and some…
State capacity may shape whether natural resources generate prosperity, as it determines if windfalls are effectively turned into useful projects or wasted. We test this hypothesis studying the 2004-2011 mining boom in Peru, where mines'…
A major challenge in data-driven decision-making is accurate policy evaluation-i.e., guaranteeing that a learned decision-making policy achieves the promised benefits. A popular strategy is model-based policy evaluation, which estimates a…
We uncover a surprising phenomenon in deep reinforcement learning: training a diverse ensemble of data-sharing agents -- a well-established exploration strategy -- can significantly impair the performance of the individual ensemble members…
Public Goods Games represent one of the most useful tools to study group interactions between individuals. However, even if they could provide an explanation for the emergence and stability of cooperation in modern societies, they are not…
Two decades of U.S. government legislative outcomes, as well as the policy preferences of rich people, the general population, and diverse interest groups, were captured in a detailed dataset curated and analyzed by Gilens, Page et al.…
Monetary markets serve as established resource allocation mechanisms, typically achieving efficient solutions with limited information. However, they are susceptible to market failures, particularly under the presence of public goods,…
The conditions that can lead to the exploitative depletion of a shared resource, i.e, the tragedy of the commons, can be reformulated as a game of prisoner's dilemma: while preserving the common resource is in the best interest of the…
The possibility of exploiting multiple resources is usually regarded as positive from both the economic and the environmental point of view. However, resource switching may also lead to unsustainable growth and, ultimately, to an…
Corruption is an endemic societal problem with profound implications in the development of nations. In combating this issue, cross-national evidence supporting the effectiveness of the rule of law seems at odds with poorly realized outcomes…
Self-optimizing behaviors can lead to outcomes where collective benefits are ultimately destroyed, a well-known phenomenon known as the ``tragedy of the commons". These scenarios are widely studied using game-theoretic approaches to analyze…
This paper studies the optimal extraction and taxation of nonrenewable natural resources. It is well known that the market values of the main strategic resources such as oil, natural gas, uranium, copper,..., etc, fluctuate randomly…