Crude oil revenue and economic development in Nigeria (1974–2008)

Abstract

AbstractNigeria, similar to many resource‐abundant nations around the world, seems to develop economically at a slow pace. This phenomenon has come to be known as the resource curse. This study surveyed existing literature on Nigeria (a resource‐rich country but with no development) and Botswana, Chile and Norway (resource‐rich countries but with development). Comparatively, the study attempted to unravel why these three countries have managed to record some measures of economic development while Nigeria seems unable to do so. The survey carried out showed that Nigeria may be lagging behind these countries developmentally because it may be suffering from institutional difficulties, voracity effect, excessive spending, excessive borrowing and fractionalisation causes of resource curse. In an attempt to know whether Nigeria suffered from the Dutch disease, relevant secondary data on the country were collected. The data were inferentially and descriptively analysed. From the analyses performed, it seemed unclear whether Nigeria suffered from the Dutch disease variant of the resource curse. The study concludes by making recommendations as to how the country could be cured from the other variants of the resource curse so that it can start achieving some measures of sorely needed economic development.