Natural Resources, Institutions and Economic Development

Recently, institutional explanations have turned into the ruling ones to expound the causes of resource curse. From among the institutional approaches, this article picks out the theory of North and his colleagues, who believe that the underlying challenge of economic growth in countries is not confined to the quality of one or several certain institutions and that it could be explained by the method of developing an order in the society. They hold that the way to develop the order influences the institutional quality and as a result it affects the economic growth. The findings shows that the econometric surveys within 1970-2010 reaffirm the theory of North and his colleagues on the countries that enjoy natural resources; in other words, the countries enjoying resources that have a democratic order did not face resource curse and could manage to use their resources in line with their economic growth.