Natural Resources and Economic Growth: An Examination of the Big Push Theory in Developing Countries

An application of the big-push theory suggests that natural resource booms can be important catalysts for development in the developing countries. In this paper, we examine this theory in 16 natural resources exporting countries, including United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Algeria, Indonesia, India, Islamic Rep. of Iran, Kuwait, Libya, Mexico, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia in the period of 1966 to 2010. In this paper IPS and LLC, methods are used for unit root test, and Pesaran (2004) and Frees (2004) approach are applied for cross-section dependency test. Moreover, to estimate the relationship Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) method are used. The results show that in some countries such as United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico natural resource boom work as a big push factor and increase economic growth. But in some other countries like Bolivia, Algeria, Islamic Rep. of Iran, and Indonesia economic growth significantly decrease after natural resource booms.