ABSTRACT A common puzzle in economics is whether natural resources are a ‘curse’ or a ‘blessing’ for economic development. Previous studies have suggested that resource booms can promote growth, but private rent-seeking can turn these booms into a curse if institutions are weak. We argue that private incentives differ depending on whether rents are diversified across different commodities or concentrated in a few of them, because greater diversification implies higher appropriation costs. By using SITC-4 level of export disaggregation to measure within-sector concentration in 131 countries during 1991–2015, we show that the effect of mining rents on economic growth is conditional on the level of concentration within the mining sector. Mining rents enhance growth for economies with low concentration and strong institutions but reduce growth for economies with high-concentration and extremely weak institutions.

中文翻译：

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采矿国家可以利用其采矿租金吗？丰度，集中度和制度问题

摘要经济学中一个普遍的难题是自然资源是经济发展的“祸根”还是“福气”。先前的研究表明，资源繁荣可以促进增长，但是如果机构薄弱，私人寻租可以将这些繁荣变成诅咒。我们认为，私人激励机制的不同取决于租金是在不同商品之间实现多元化还是集中在其中几种商品上，因为多元化程度越高，意味着更高的拨款成本。通过使用SITC-4出口分类的水平来衡量1991-2015年间131个国家的部门内部集中度，我们发现采矿租金对经济增长的影响取决于采矿部门内部集中度的水平。