BOOMING SECTOR AND DUTCH DISEASE ECONOMICS: SURVEY AND CONSOLIDATION *

Abstract

THIS paper aims to consolidate a growing literature on booming sector economics and the Dutch Disease. The term Dutch Disease refers to the adverse effects on Dutch manufacturing of the natural gas discoveries of the nineteen sixties, essentially through the subsequent appreciation of the Dutch real exchange rate.' The paper is also intended to fill some theoretical gaps, notably in sections 5 (immigration), 6 (endogenous terms of trade effects), 7 (domestic absorption) and 10 (dynamics). The issues have been widely discussed in many countries, notably the oil exporters. The key article in the British discussion on the effects of North Sea oil is Forsyth and Kay (1980).2 Booming Sector models can also illuminate many historical episodes where there have been sectoral booms, with adverse general equilibrium effects on other sectors. Thus there is wide scope for application in economic history. For example, Forsyth and Nicholas (1983) have interpreted the consequences on Spanish industry of the inflow of American treasure in the sixteenth century in Dutch Disease terms. Cairnes (1859) recognised that the gold discoveries in Australia in the eighteen fifties had Dutch Disease effects on some Australian industries, and this episode has recently been studied in Maddock and McLean (1983).