Resource-abundant Countries Research Articles

Pathways to sustainability: Evaluating the impact of green energy, natural resources, FinTech, and environmental policies in resource-abundant countries

The escalating concerns about ecological sustainability have made the consumption of resources a crucial global issue. The speedy growth of the economy is heavily reliant on excessive consumption of resources, which significantly contributes to the imbalance between biodiversity and ecological footprint, resulting in a decrease in the carrying capacity. Both researchers and policymakers strive to enhance the amount of financial capital in the present time while ensuring that the country's economic growth remains unaffected. The primary objective of this study is to analyze the impact of green energy, financial technology (FinTech), and environmental regulations on enhancing the environmental sustainability of resource-rich countries from 1992 to 2022. To address problems with cross-sectional dependency and slope heterogeneity, this study employs the CS- ARDL model. The long-term results indicate that the reliance on income from natural resources decreased the load capacity factor. However, the load capacity factor was improved by shifting to green energy, adopting fintech, and implementing environmental regulations. The utilization of the AMG and CCEMG estimate procedures enhances the validity of the research findings. These findings provide essential policy recommendations for all stakeholder involved.

Are Natural Resources Harmful to the Ecology? Fresh Insights from Middle East and North African Resource-Abundant Countries

The Middle East and North African (MENA) region is among the regions most impacted by global warming and climate change. At the same time, the region accounts for 58% of global oil reserves and 43% of global natural gas reserves. It is, therefore, important to assess the role of natural resource abundance in the environmental degradation faced by MENA resource-abundant countries. This study contributes to this research area by exploring the short- and long-term repercussions of natural resources on the ecological footprint (EFP) of eight resource-rich MENA countries between 2000 and 2021. The research performs both aggregate and disaggregate assessments by considering the total resource rents, as well as specific rents of oil, natural gas, and minerals. The pooled mean group estimator indicates that a rise of 1% in total natural resources induces an increase of 0.053% in the EFP, implying that natural resources are harmful to the environment. The disaggregate analysis shows that oil rents have the most adverse environmental effects in the long run, followed by natural gas. Finally, mineral rents are determined to be neutral vis-à-vis the environment. In light of these findings, policy recommendations for reducing the adverse environmental impacts of natural resources are suggested.

The Role of Political Stability in Nine Arab Natural Resource-Abundant Countries (ANRAC) Toward Environmental Sustainability through CO2 Mitigation

This study examines the intricate interplay of political stability, natural resource rent, industrialization, globalization, economic growth, and carbon emissions in nine Arab resource-abundant countries (ANRAC) from 1996 to 2019. Applying advanced statistical approaches, such as the Method of Moment Quantiles Regression (MMQREG) as a baseline estimation approach, along with the inclusion of PCSE, FGLS, and FMOLS, to enhance, to enhance the reliability and stability of the obtained results. The study results suggest that globalization, coupled with the interplay between political stability and economic growth, fosters advancements in environmental conditions and the pursuit of sustainable practices. In contrast, political stability, abundant natural resources, sustained economic expansion, and widespread industrialization are associated with increased CO2 emissions, posing detrimental effects on the environment. Notably, there seems to be a correlation between the concurrent improvement of political stability and economic growth and a reduction in CO2 emissions.

Love of variety and the welfare effects of trade in renewable resources

We analyze welfare effects of trade in renewable resources, which is induced by consumer love of variety in resource consumption. We model two countries, one being relatively wealthy in labor and capital, the other one being relatively resource abundant. For open-access resources, we show that trade freeness benefits the country that is wealthy in labor and capital, as it improves access to a larger variety of resources, especially to those of the resource-abundant country. The resource-abundant country also benefits from improved access to variety, but due to the increased resource demand and resulting overuse, this country’s welfare may depend on trade freeness in a non-monotonic fashion. We derive conditions such that welfare first decreases and then increases when trade freeness varies from autarky to costless trade. In direct comparison, autarky may generate higher welfare than costless trade only under restrictive conditions, in particular if endowments are very asymmetric and if the love of variety effect is weak. We also consider resource harvesting under private property rights and show that only for a sufficiently low discount rate the welfare increase from trade freeness in the resource-abundant country is sustainable.

Natural resources, financial globalization, renewable energy, and environmental quality: Novel findings from top natural resource abundant countries

Natural resources impact our ecosystem's constituents, affecting ecological quality. In this context, the goal is to explore the effect of natural resources (NRR), financial globalization, and renewable energy on environmental quality by paying particular attention to natural resource abundanteconomiess from 1990 to 2016. To do this, we used the method of moment quantile regression to evaluate the interrelationship between the focused variables. The study makes significant contributions to the empirical body of knowledge by examining the primary factors that influence the load capacity factor (LCF) in countries with the abundance of natural resources. The empirical outcomes reveal that: (i)renewable energy and financial globalization cause a surge in LCF; (ii) NRR and economic advancements degrade environmental quality in the leading natural resource abundantcountries; (iii) a bidirectional causal effect is observed among natural resources, global financial, and LCF. The outcomes of the present study offer new insights for governments of natural resource abundant economies on effective strategies and policies for achieving environmental quality.

Bibliometric measurement of the resource curse and its implication for sustainable development

The natural resource curse refers to the phenomenon in which certain resource-abundant countries face limited economic and social development. Inadequate management, corruption and poor governance are recurrent problems associated with it. The relevance of this area lies in its influence on economic and social policy-making in resource-abundant countries. These dynamics challenge the long-term viability of their economies and the equity of the distribution of benefits. Addressing this issue is crucial to mitigate environmental impacts and promote inclusive and sustainable growth in these nations. In this context, a bibliometric methodology is adopted to analyzes the relationship between this curse and sustainable development. The analysis shows studies published since 2004 between Web of Science and Scopus. The results indicate three main categories; Environmental Studies, Environmental Science and Economics. The results contribute to the understanding of the relationship between natural resources and socio-economic development, highlighting the importance of addressing the situation in order to promote sustainable development in the countries concerned. Finally, theoretical and practical implications are presented.

The resource curse and the role of institutions revisited

AbstractMany studies have shown that natural resource abundant countries with strong institutions tend to escape the resource curse. Institutional quality has been examined using broad indices of rule of law, the rate of murder, the share of the shadow economy and provision of public goods. Nonetheless, we need to locate the specific institutional conditions under which the curse manifests since some “rule of law” countries like Nigeria and Angola are generally classified as resource cursed. In this review, I argue that managing and distributing natural resource wealth through a centralised planning strategy and lack of a binding long-term national development plan are institutional conditions that encourage government unaccountability as they do not restrict policy makers against discretionary distribution of natural resource windfall, rent seeking, clientelism and corruption which contribute to poor economic development and growth. Also, inadequate regulations on how to address the potential or actual impacts of natural resource extraction on the livelihood of local people and the environment tend to precipitate grievance-induced resource conflict.

Energy use tendencies in a resource-abundant country: the case of Canada

Energy use tendencies in a resource-abundant country: the case of Canada

Postpartum hemorrhage; A perspective from evidence

Postpartum hemorrhage although highly preventable, it is the leading cause of maternal mortality in both resource abundant countries and resource limited countries, despite the presence of known risk factors every woman has a chance of developing postpartum hemorrhage during delivery, but identification of high-risk women and active management of third stage of labor has been shown to have positive effects in reducing mortality from postpartum hemorrhage.

Natural resources rent and climate vulnerability: An inverted U-shaped relationship moderated by productive capacity, trade openness, and urbanization in resource-abundant countries

Natural resources play a pivotal role in the global economy, with numerous nations leveraging their extraction, utilization, and exportation as primary drivers for economic advancement. Nonetheless, an overreliance on these resources can expose countries to the adverse effects of climate change, including droughts, floods, and other extreme climatic events, thereby jeopardizing production and revenue streams. Paradoxically, the revenues derived from natural resource extraction can be channeled towards initiatives aimed at climate change mitigation and adaptation, underscoring the intricate interplay between natural resources and climate vulnerability. This research endeavors to elucidate the inverted U-shaped relationship between total natural resources rent and climate vulnerability. The study encompasses nineteen resource-rich countries over the period 2000–2021. Employing the panel quantile ARDL (Auto-Regressive Distributed Lag) methodology with a dynamic fixed effect specification, we delve into the moderating influence of overall productive capacity, trade openness and urbanization on the nexus between resource extraction and climate vulnerability. The panel QARDL estimations are segmented into the 25th, 50th, and 75th quantiles for both long-term and short-term outcomes. In the long-term perspective, our findings validate an inverted U-shaped association between total natural resources rent and climate vulnerability. Factors such as urbanization and trade openness exhibit a positive correlation with climate vulnerability, whereas economic growth demonstrates an inverse relationship. Significantly, the study reveals that productive capacity, when acting as a moderator for natural resources rent, holds the potential to attenuate climate vulnerability.

What role public debt plays to moderate the influence of natural resources on financial development? Appraising Resource-Curse Hypothesis in MENA Region

A sound financial structure is one of the imperative macroeconomic goals for developed and developing ones, particularly for resource-abundant countries, which are more vulnerable due to the unexpected shock of COVID-19 and experiencing the financial resource curse (FRC). The literature has extensively discussed the assimilation of natural resources (NR) into a blessing or curse; however, little is known concerning the FRC hypothesis through integrating public debts (PD). Therefore, the present research scrutinizes the FRC in the Middle East and North African (MENA) countries by considering the PD, NR, institutional quality (IQ), and financial development (FD) in an integrating framework from 2001 to 2020. The study employs a cross-section augmented distributed lag (CS-ARDL) estimator to address the concerns of cross-section dependency and slope heterogeneity. The long-run empirical findings elucidate that NR significantly reduces FD and affirms the FRC hypothesis, while IQ positive promotes the FD in the MENA region. Another pertinent factor, PD reduces FD significantly, and the moderating impact of PD through NR reveals the inverse association with FD. Additionally, consistent findings are investigated in the short run with a smaller coefficient magnitude, and the cointegrating term converges towards the steady state equilibrium with a 29.4% adjustment rate in any diverging situation. Similar empirical outcomes are echoed from the alternative panel techniques, and panel causality testing indicates the bi-directional causality among all model variables except IQ and FD. Overall results provide valuable policy implications to the MENA region that should empower the IQ levels in mitigating the adverse impacts of FRC.

How do financial development and ICT moderate financial resource curse hypothesis in developing countries?

Sustainable resource utilization and economic prosperity are one of the ultimate goals worldwide; mainly, resource-abundant emerging countries are more concerned with identifying the factors of sustainable development in confronting the resource curse. Over the last two decades, tremendous progression in information and communication technology (ICT) and financial development (FD) has triggered economic prosperity. In this aspect, the study evaluates the dynamic impact of natural resources (NR), ICT, and FD on economic growth in eleven developing economies from 1990 to 2021. Moreover, the study confirms the presence of a curse paradox or blessing associated with NR by employing a cross-section augmented distributed lag (CS-ARDL) estimator after resolving the cross-section dependency and heterogeneity issues. The findings exhibit that NR is inversely associated with economic development, confirming the resource curse problem in these economies, while FD and ICT encourage sustainable growth. Manifestly, the indirect moderating contribution of ICT and FD reveals that when resource-abundant countries are embodied with a well-developed financial sector and ICT infrastructure, resources are efficiently consumed, leading to inclusive economic progress. In addition, the identical outcomes are echoed by utilizing the alternative panel techniques. Overall, the study recommends valuable policy strategies in resource utilization for sustainable development.

Win-win strategies for firms operating in resource-abundant countries: Technological spillovers and a collaborative diversification policy

This paper responds to the growing need to be aware of the opportunities presented by technology spillovers resulting from value co-creation supported by diversification policies in resource-abundant host countries. It examines the effects of such a policy on both the local market strategies of multinational enterprises (MNEs) and on technological upgrades of local companies, where such policies require international oil and gas companies to build linkages to induce spillover. We argue that the effects of the policy with regard to spillovers can depend on the actors’ approach to collaboration. To suggest a theoretical foundation for such a collaborative approach, we integrate the value co-creation perspective with the concept of spillovers. The resulting approach is based on win-win strategies: the internationalization of the resource sector, and a shift towards the provision of service-based economy aid in an attempt to develop opportunities for sustainable operations on the part of multinationals in resource-abundant host countries. The development of local capabilities resulting from technological spillovers can enable local businesses to have access to international expertise in technology, create strategic opportunities and introduce long-term benefits for both local and international companies. This study adopts an abductive method as the basis for logical reasoning, employing an analysis of multilevel longitudinal case studies based on interviews with experts and multiple sources of industry documentation.

The Nexus between Economic Growth, Natural Resource Depletion and Foreign Direct Investment

The overall economic performance is summarised in the economic growth. It occurs when resources are combined technically in an effective way. While advanced countries have no reliance on natural resources, they experience steady growth compared to natural resource-abundant countries. The Caspian Sea basin countries (Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan) and Central Asia states (Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan) own considerable mineral and ecological resources. This paper aims to examine the relationship between economic growth and natural resource depletion in the region during 1997–2019. Due to abundance of natural resources, this region trades fossil fuels and minerals with other economic blocs. Hence, foreign direct investment is added into the regression model in order to account for economic openness. In addition, the share of industry value added in gross domestic product is included to embody the industrialisation impact on economic growth. Finally, the tertiary enrolment is entered into the regression to measure the effect of human capital on economic growth. After specifying the econometric model, variables under study were tested for unit root. Due to difference in order of integration among variables, panel fully modified least squares method was used to estimate the model. The estimation results indicate the significant and positive effects of natural resource depletion, foreign direct investment, the share of industry value added and tertiary enrolment on economic growth. These findings imply that natural resource depletion contributes to economic growth much greater than foreign direct investment and tertiary enrolment. Thus, the resource curse is not confirmed across the examined countries.

Identifying technological trajectories in the mining sector using patent citation networks

This paper uses patent citation networks to study technological change in the mining industry between 1970 and 2015. The analysis is undertaken at both the aggregate level by jointly considering all mining-related technological fields, and at the micro-level of patents in nine sub-fields, representing specific technological “sub-trajectories”.Consistent with previous literature focused on other technological domains, we find that innovation patterns in the mining sector are “technology bounded”, i.e. largely shaped by patenting activities carried out in a very limited range of mining technological fields, even though we detect a shift from exploration to environmental mining technologies (emergence of a new technological paradigm).In addition, we examine two aspects of technical change that have been largely disregarded in extant research: the geographical patterns of inventive activities and the role of key applicants in such patterns. We show that core mining patents and leading inventors involved originate almost exclusively from the US, so that trajectories appear to be heavily “geographically bounded”, revealing that developing resource-abundant countries lag behind the technological frontier in mining. Moreover, only a few applicant firms are responsible for most inventive activities reflecting a highly concentrated oligopolistic structure, hence characterizing trajectories as “applicant bounded”.Similar results are observed at the level of sub-trajectories, although with some relevant exceptions, hence suggesting that a substantial heterogeneity exists within the industry and across mining-related technologies.

Do international transparency initiatives substitute for domestic governance?

International institutions affect domestic governance, but their substantial effects primarily depend on member countries’ genuine willingness to comply. This paper explores whether international institutions complement or substitute for domestic institutions. The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) was created for the purpose of complementing domestic institutions in resource-abundant countries that show low levels of transparency. The essential mechanism of the EITI is to provide the public with the information on resource revenues. By enhancing the flow of information on resources, the EITI is expected to improve domestic transparency governance on resource industries. This transparency of information can promote accountability and reduce corruption in resource-rich countries. In contrast, international institutions can substitute domestic institutions in a negative way, leading to reductions in domestic governance quality. By using the instrumental variable estimation to address a selection bias and the survival model to estimate the effect of the EITI membership on domestic transparency governance, this paper finds that the EITI membership has a positive effect on domestic transparency, but there is little spillover effect on institutional reformation.

How natural resources affect financial development? Fresh evidence from top-10 natural resource abundant countries

This study is to examine the impact of natural resources, economic growth, export diversity and inflation on financial development in top-10 natural resource abundant countries, spanning the period of 1990–2020. The empirical outcomes show that natural resources, economic growth, export diversity, inflation and financial development have long-run equilibrium relationship. Further, export diversity, economic growth and inflation increase financial development but natural resources reduce financial development in natural resource abundant countries. Furthermore, panel causality results show a unidirectional causality moving from financial development to export diversity and inflation. The empirical results offer new insights for policy makers to protect their natural resources for the betterment of financial development in top-10 natural resource abundant countries.

Natural Resource Rents and Social Capital Interaction: New Evidence on the Role of Financial Development

The varied opinions on financial developmental impacts on growth in different economies have been the subject of considerable debates among economists during the last two decades, especially in natural-resource-rich countries. However, the role of financial development on a crucial channel of growth, i.e. social capital, has been neglected. Unlike previous studies, the level of income in resource-based economies has been considered an important factor influencing the way financial development affects social capital-resource rents’ interactions. Thus, in this paper, the impact of financial development as an infrastructure to turn natural capital into social capital has been investigated in two groups of resource-abundant countries using a panel data model during 2009:Q1-2016:Q4. The empirical results in the case of high-income economies show that a high level of financial development can ensure resource rents, positively influencing social capital. However, findings indicate an adverse impact of natural resource rents on social capital in medium-income countries.

Transparency and natural resources in sub-Saharan Africa

The resource curse has drawn much attention from economists and policymakers. An effort to resolve this curse is the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), a global standard to improve transparency and accountability in resource-abundant countries. This study theoretically and empirically assesses the impact of EITI on natural resource rents. We present a simple model to describe the collusion between politicians and resource companies. Our model reveals that monitoring both politicians and resource companies under schemes such as EITI is effective in preventing illegal transactions. Then, using data for sub-Saharan African countries from 1991 to 2015, we show that EITI implementation increases total natural resource rents and mineral rents, although it has no significant impact on oil and natural gas rents.

In the Model Cell Lines of Moderately and Poorly Differentiated Endometrial Carcinoma, Estrogens Can Be Formed via the Sulfatase Pathway.

Endometrial cancer (EC) is the most common gynecological malignancy in resource-abundant countries. The majority of EC cases are estrogen dependent but the mechanisms of estrogen biosynthesis and oxidative metabolism and estrogen action are not completely understood. Here, we evaluated formation of estrogens in models of moderately and poorly differentiated EC: RL95-2 and KLE cells, respectively. Results revealed high expression of estrone-sulfate (E1-S) transporters (SLCO1A2, SLCO1B3, SLCO1C1, SLCO3A1, SLC10A6, SLC22A9), and increased E1-S uptake in KLE vs RL95-2 cells. In RL95-2 cells, higher levels of sulfatase and better metabolism of E1-S to E1 were confirmed compared to KLE cells. In KLE cells, disturbed balance in expression of HSD17B genes led to enhanced activation of E1 to E2, compared to RL95-2 cells. Additionally, increased CYP1B1 expression and down-regulation of genes encoding phase II metabolic enzymes: COMT, NQO1, NQO2, and GSTP1 suggested decreased detoxification of carcinogenic metabolites in KLE cells. Results indicate that in model cell lines of moderately and poorly differentiated EC, estrogens can be formed via the sulfatase pathway.