Abstract
For a specific small-scale region with abundant resources, its copious resources tend to dictate the basic direction of its development, and may subsequently give rise to an industrial structure centered on the advantageous resources. This can give rise to an economic structure that lacks diversity, causing the economic development in the entire local region to fall into the dilemma of the resource curse. The present study conducts a case study from the perspective of small-scale regions, incorporating various types of resource-dependent cities in China, including Qingyang, Jinchang, and Baiyin, to interpret and analyze the resource curse effect by calculating a resource curse coefficient. Moreover, based on the regression model, the present study further discusses the empirical relations associated with the resource curse phenomenon. The results show that, regardless of whether a resource-dependent city is in the early, intermediate or late stage of its resource development, economic development is always plagued by the resource curse effect to a certain degree. Resource development cannot promote economic development, rather, it inhibits economic growth to some extent, resulting in an array of effects that are unfavorable to economic development, rendering the development unsustainable. For different types of resource-dependent cities, resource curse effect exhibits distinct characteristics. The resource curse effect is strongest for a resource-dependent city during an economic recession, is less severe during a development period, and is weakest during maturation. Resource development not only has a direct adverse impact on economic growth, but also often affects economic growth in multiple ways and on various levels through the Dutch disease effect, the crowding out effect, and the institution weakening effect. Until now, most results show that there is no obvious resource curse effect at the national and provincial level. The verification results of small-scale regions show that the resource curse effect at the city level still exists. In addition, the resource curse effect differs across different types of resource-dependent cities.
Highlights
The relationship between natural resources and economic growth has always been an important research topic [1]
Based on the data of 3092 counties in the United States, James and Aadland [4] used a generalized least squares (GLS) regression model to analyze the relationship between natural resources and economic growth for all the counties in the states of Maine and Wyoming, and found that the level of economic growth was not high in resource-dependent cities, even when they excluded the factors of policy influence, population difference, income and spatial relations
In the case of the crowding out effect, Sachs and Warner [10] concluded that an abundance of natural resources inhibits economic growth mainly by exerting a crowding out effect on certain factors, including investment of human capital, investment in education, and technological innovation, which promote economic growth
Summary
The relationship between natural resources and economic growth has always been an important research topic [1]. Weber [5] used a regression model, taking 362 counties in the south of the United States as the research object, to analyze the relationship between gas exploitation and economic growth, and found that there is no obvious resource curse phenomenon, which indicated that economic development is not blindly dependent on the exploitation of natural resources. In the case of the crowding out effect, Sachs and Warner [10] concluded that an abundance of natural resources inhibits economic growth mainly by exerting a crowding out effect on certain factors, including investment of human capital, investment in education, and technological innovation, which promote economic growth. Some scholars studied how to manage the relationship between various human activities in an integrated manner in the areas with these resources as their main economic drivers, in order for them to continue to develop sustainably [15,16]
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