Nonrenewable Resources, Income Inequality and Per Capita GDP : An Empirical Analysis

Scognamillo, Antonio ; Mele, Gianluca ; Sensini, Luca

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: natural capital;    nonrenewable resources;    economic growth;    inequality;    income distribution;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-7831
RP-ID  :  WPS7831

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This analysis examines the relationshipbetween nonrenewable resource dependence, economic growthand income inequality. It uses a two-equation system inwhich the Gini index and GDP per capita are the dependentvariables and the stock of nonrenewable resources as a shareof national wealth -- i.e. resource dependence -- is theindependent variable. Using a dataset that includesinformation on 43 countries from 1980 to 2012, this paperestimates several model specifications in order to check therobustness of the results under different assumptions and toaccount for income-group-related heterogeneity amongcountries. The baseline model provides strong evidence thatnatural resource dependence is negatively correlated withboth per capita GDP and the Gini index; in other words,resource dependence is associated with lower income levels,but also with a more equal distribution of income.Interestingly, however, after controlling for country incomegroup, the sign and magnitude of these relationships appearto become dependent on national-level structuralcharacteristics. Among higher-income countries, greaternonrenewable natural resource dependence is associated withlower income inequality, while there is no statisticallysignificant correlation with GDP per capita. Among thelower-income group, greater dependence on nonrenewablenatural resources is associated with both higher levels ofincome inequality and lower per capita GDP. Further analysisfocusing on a subsample of non-renewable resource richcountries confirms these findings.