BH 102 (Baldwin Little Theater) and on Zoom: https://zoom.us/j/99924839868
John James Quinn, Professor of Political Science, Truman State University
The Resource Curse Undermined: Majority State Ownership of Mining or Oil in Africa
Developing countries with mineral or petroleum exporting sectors have generally featured lower incomes, lower growth, less diversification of their economies, lower levels of democracy, and even more civil strife and war. This is often referred to as “the mineral resource curse.” This project examines the role of majority state ownership of these mining or oil exporting sectors on these outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa from 1966-2000. Using cross section and a matched case study approach, it seems that resource curse outcomes are more prevalent and stronger in countries which had featured majority state ownership of these sectors. This does not suggested that the lack of MSO makes these outcomes completely disappear, but it seems the best performers do not have MSO and the worst performers do, and the averaged data tells a similar story.