Infectious diseases and health outcomes’ implications of natural resource curse in Africa

Abstract

The far-reaching implications of natural resource curse on most resource-rich developing economies arguably suggests no aspect of the broader economy is spared. In light of this stark reality, this inquiry probes into causal linkages between infectious diseases, its associated health outcomes and natural resource rents on 42 African economies for which there are no missing data, over the period 2000–2019. Employing an endogenous–resistant estimator of the system generalized method of moments, the following findings are unambiguously documented. First, natural resource curse thesis is validated for curable infectious diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis but refuted for an incurable HIV prevalence. Second, the established resource curse equally affects health outcomes by shortening life expectancy, raising under-five mortality rate, increasing both birth and death rates, respectively. Third, the curse and the blessing that are often associated for owing abundant natural resources spread across other confounding variables such as per capita GDP, urbanization, control of corruption, polity, temperature, latitude, government spending on health, prevalence of HIV for females, secondary school enrolment rate, telephone per 100 subscriptions, foreign direct investment, per capita carbon emissions, trade openness, and globalization depending on which of the diseases and health outcomes’ models is estimated. Lastly, the established resource curse narrative is robust to using alternative measures of natural resource curse. In line with above findings, policy implications are drawn.